This Whole Thing is a Mess
by fuzzflight
Summary: Sasuke returns to Konoha but is depressed. Naruto decides to go back in time to try and save Sasuke but it ends up Naruto being the one needing saving after he falls into Madara's plan. Time-Travel. Better then it sounds.
1. Chapter 1

**This Whole Thing's a Mess  
**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto, if I did, the whole plot of it would probably suck. =P

**Warning: **if you're not caught up with the Naruto manga, I would suggest not reading this because it would contain spoilers. This is also contains some shounen-ai(strong friendship between guys) and MAYBE yaoi (boyxboy relationship) at the end. You've been warned =)

I'm totally horrible with coming up with names for my stories. Dx Sorry if you don't like the title of this story but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give this story a chance.

Anyway, this is my first story! Woohoo! I hope it doesn't totally suck. Um... it'll probably get really confusing in the coming chapters because of switching between future and past... plus I'm not good at writing summaries so the story will (hopefully) be better then the summary led on...Anyway! My story!(*evil laugh for no reason*) xP

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Naruto panted. His clothes were ripped and torn and blood-stained with his own blood as well as the enemy's. His body had many marks that even Kyuubi's healing powers were having trouble healing. He ached so much, but he still managed a smirk as he looked down at the enemy at his feet, readying for the final blow.

The enemy that Naruto fought had a snarl on his face. His orange mask had long since been knocked off during their battle revealing his face. He looked much like Sasuke, but that was a given, since they were both Uchiha's. The most disturbing part about his face was that he had three eyes, two sharigan and one Rinnegan that he had stolen from a dead Pein.

_Uchiha Madara_, Naruto thought the enemy's name in his head. The simple thought of the man's name sent a shiver of hate running down Naruto's spine. Naruto could say many reasons why he hated the man so much that he couldn't forgive like he had done to countless others but the main reason was for what Madara had done to Sasuke. After Sasuke killed Itachi, Madara had taken advantage of Sasuke's confused state and brain-washed him. Naruto couldn't forgive him for that. He deserved death.

Uchiha Madara may have looked like a trapped rabbit, but he was currently scheming. He knew he had messed up. He had let the jinchuuriki of the nine-tailed fox live for to long. If he had moved sooner against him, he wouldn't have been in this predicament. He had never thought the kyuubi-boy would've gotten this strong!

As Naruto brought his kunai out and pointed the tip at him, Madara was preparing for one last jutsu. Naruto snarled and dove the kunai towards the Uchiha's throat. Just before the tip dug into his throat, a loud poof was heard. Uchiha Madara disappeared into a cloud of smoke. Naruto had jumped back in his surprise. When the smoke cleared, Madara had disappeared.

"Damn," Naruto growled. The shinobi was to tired to completely comprehend what had just happened but he knew that Madara had gotten away. Naruto's legs started wobble. The weariness of his battle had finally caught up with him. He blinked his eyes tiredly as black dots started to jump around in his vision. When his legs could no longer support him, he collapsed. He hadn't passed out, but his body was to tired to support him and his eyes were to tired to stay open. He could barely hear what was happening around him.

Cries of worry surrounded Naruto, and he could just barely recognize his comrades voices, Sakura and Kakashi-sensei's. They had come with him to battle Uchiha Madara and Sasuke. Naruto tried to open his eyes as he thought briefly of Sasuke. He had come with Uchiha Madara, and Naruto, with his team's help, had beaten him. They hadn't killed him though, so he should have been lying somewhere, passed out. Naruto wanted to make sure though. What if he had gone off with Uchiha Madara or worse, what if he had died!

Naruto's head hurt as it tried to wrap itself around the situation. He wasn't very bright on a normal occasion and being half-passed out wasn't helping him. He finally succumbed to sleep, vaguely aware of being lifted by caring arms.

* * *

When Naruto finally woke, his eyes were crusty from sleep and he could only open one eye just enough to see his surroundings. Before he was able to look though, he felt himself being crushed by strong arms. He couldn't tell who was hugging him but it was such a hard hug that he was afraid he would pass out. He coughed, trying to get the person's attention. Were they _trying _to kill him?

The arms pulled away, and the person was muttering that she was sorry. Naruto blinked, trying to open his eyes farther. When he could finally open them all the way, he looked at the person who had nearly hugged him to death. It was Sakura. His blue eyes met her green ones that had obvious relief in them.

"Naruto, you're finally awake!" Sakura said joyously. She smiled, then coughed and got a glare in her eyes. "You idiot! how dare you make me worry about you! You've been passed out for three days!" Sakura yelled at him.

Naruto grimaced at Sakura's yell. Girls were so confusing; first she had been saying that she was so happy and then she suddenly yelled at him! It wasn't like it was his fault for being passed out for three days. _Three days, _Naruto thought. He sat up, but regretted it as the room started to spin around him. He blinked again, trying to ease the spinning room and his headache. He was sitting on a small bed surrounded by white walls. At the right side of him, was a small bedside table that had flowers and other little gifts on it and to the left of him, was a window. Outside was bright, and it blinded Naruto temporarily as he looked out the window. He was in the hospital.

As soon as Naruto concluded where he was, he turned his attention back to Sakura who was watching him quietly. "Have I really been out for three days?" Naruto asked quietly.

Sakura had to lean in to hear Naruto's soft voice. "Just about," she said, leaning back into the chair she was sitting on. "We've all been worried sick about you. You shouldn't have pushed yourself so far in that fight!"

Naruto shook his head, trying to clear his head so he could remember exactly what had happened. He could just barely recall fighting Sasuke and Uchiha Madara. They had beaten Sasuke and Naruto couldn't remember what had happened to Madara.

Naruto groaned, as another wave of pain pierced his head. "Where's Sasuke?" he asked.

Sakura paused. She looked at Naruto's hopeful eyes. She knew that Naruto would eventually ask about Sasuke, but that didn't make her job any easier. "Well, Sasuke is... Sasuke is..."

"Sasuke is?" Naruto prodded on. His heart started to pound in his chest. He wasn't dead was he?

Sakura looked down and then back up. "Well, he's alive. His wounds are healing just fine, but..."

Naruto let out a breath as Sakura said he was alive but his heart once again quickened as she said the 'but' word. "But...?"

Sakura took a deep breath. "He's really depressed. He doesn't want to live. He hasn't been eating so we've been forced to feed him through a tube. He keeps asking us to kill him. If he keeps this up, we'll be forced into doing what he asks."

Naruto gaped. Sasuke didn't want to live! They had finally gotten him back to Konoha and Naruto was about to lose him again. Naruto lifted the bedsheets off of him, revealing his hospital outfit. He swung his legs off the bed and stood, trying to ignore the pounding in his head and the black dots swimming in his vision. "Take me to see him," he said quietly, "please."

Sakura knew she should refuse, Naruto was obviously still recovering and needed to lay down, but hearing the hope and plead in his voice, she found herself nodding. She stood. "Ok, but only for a quick visit, you still need lots of rest and Tsunade-sama would kill me if she found out that I had let you wander about." Sakura stood and took Naruto's hand in her own. She opened the door to the room and quickly glanced around to make sure no one was coming. She then took Naruto out of his room, walking very slowly as Naruto tired not to trip. His legs were wobbling, still weak and not wanting to support his weight.

Luckily, Sasuke's room was only a couple of doors down. Sakura poked her head in but no one was in there except for the lone body of Uchiha Sasuke in his hospital bed. Sakura opened the door and let Naruto walk in. Naruto stopped just inside of the door, gaping and looking Sasuke over.

Sasuke looked awful. From just seeing the Uchiha's face, one could tell that he been neglecting himself. His cheekbones were jutting out and he looked very pale, almost a ghostly white. His dark, almost black, blue eyes stared straight ahead, not seeing anything. Naruto wondered briefly how he had managed to make himself look so awful in just three days.

Sakura was watching Naruto carefully. She stayed close by his side, just in case he passed out or ran to Sasuke's side. It hurt to see Naruto's face contorted with so many emotions.

Naruto slowly walked forward, breathing hard. He grabbed the chair by Sasuke's bed and slowly sat down. "Sasuke," he whispered.

Sasuke's eyes moved to look at the blonde shinobi. Naruto, at first, was glad that the Uchiha had responded but looking into his almost black eyes, Naruto's heart fell. They eyes were an empty pit, with no emotion. They were cold, so cold that they sent shivers running down Naruto's spine.

"Sasuke," Naruto's voice was now shaking with worry and fear. The blonde could feel tears biting at the back of his eyes. He didn't want Sasuke to die! Not now! Not when he had just gotten him back."Why have you been treating yourself this way? If its because you hate yourself for doing everything you've done, then don't hate yourself. I've already forgiven you."

"Naruto," Sasuke said, his voice raspy and dry. Naruto's eyes widened in surprise at hearing the Uchiha speak. "I don't need your forgiveness, I need my own." It was as simple as that. Sasuke averted his eyes from Naruto and looked back up at the white ceiling. His mask that he had on showed no emotion but on the inside he had so many confusing emotions that he could not name. He had never felt this way before. He had this ice of guilt in his stomach and it wouldn't go away. He didn't deserve Naruto in his life and knowing that made the guilt in his stomach just burn even more when Naruto was at his side. The Uchiha just wanted to end his life.

Naruto wiped at his eyes as a tear managed to slip by. "Please Sasuke, " he quietly begged he dark-haired Uchiha. "Please don't give up on life." Naruto took a shaky breath. "I j-just got you b-back. I don't w-want to loose you again. " Naruto's eyes were half closed, and his chin shook. His eyes were focused on the white bed sheets; he would loose control of his tears if he let himself look at the Uchiha's pale face.

Sasuke pretended not to hear Naruto's words. He kept his face emotionless and continued to stare at the ceiling, not even flinching. He did hear them though, and they stung.

Naruto looked up at Sasuke's face, tears now silently falling from his eyes. He wanted Sasuke to say something but there was no indication that Sasuke had even heard what he had said. Naruto gulped. "Please," he whispered.

Sakura had been quietly watching the two boys. She sighed, chewing her lip. Naruto looked like a total mess. Sakura silently walked towards the blonde shinobi and put a hand on his shoulder. Naruto flinched and looked up at Sakura. He had forgotten that she was there. "It's time to go," Sakura told him.

Naruto nodded. He didn't want to leave but he knew that he had to listen to Sakura. Sakura could easily drag him out using her monster-strength anyway. Naruto took one last glance at Sasuke before standing up and following Sakura back to his room. Back in his room, he stared at the ceiling for awhile, think about what he could do to make Sasuke feel better.

As soon as Naruto and Sakura left, Sasuke let out a long sigh. He turned on his side and looked outside. Maybe Naruto was right, maybe he shouldn't give up on life. If anything, he should keep on living for the blonde dobe. Sasuke never actually showed it, but Naruto was his most precious person in his life and he didn't want to hurt him again. _If I don't die, I'll have to do something for that idiot to redeem my honor, _Sasuke thought. _But I may not even get the chance to redeem my honor, then what would I do? _Sasuke, kept arguing within himself, considering whether he should kill himself or continue to live even though the pain would be horrible.

* * *

A light drizzle had started, and with the incoming gray clouds, a storm was coming. Knowing this, a ninja walked through the forest, looking for shelter. He wasn't afraid of being in the storm, but he was still recovering from a fight three days ago and he needed a place to rest and think. The ninja stumbled upon a small cave. He entered it fearlessly, without even a thought of what might be lurking inside. The ninja didn't even get a fire started, he just went straight to the walls of the cave and sat down resting his back against the damp smooth stone wall.

A flash of lighting lightened up the cave, revealing the ninja's scarred face. It was the face of Uchiha Madara.

Uchiha Madara glared outside. He can't believe he had let the stupid jinchuuriki beat him! The kyuubi had been the last demon he had needed to create the all-mighty bijuu. He had even gotten the eight-tails. He was a smart man though, and would not let the same mistake happen twice. Madara spent the rest of the night, thinking of how to get the nine-tailed demon.

As the storm was about to break, and dawn was approaching, an evil smile was spreading across Madara's face. He had schemed an almost perfect plan that the kuuybi-boy had no hope of stopping. Madara stood, and waited patiently for the storm to finally break. Once it did, he stepped from the cave and started walking towards Konoha. His plan would need preparations and to start those he needed to get the fox-demon in on it.

* * *

**End of chapter 1!**

**(Author Notes)** So, I hope you liked it. ^^ I'll try to get the next chapter by next week. Um... can I at least get one review before I update? PLEASE? I really want to know what you thought! Did you like it or did you hate or was it just okay? I want to know! I would also love suggestions on how to improve my writing and what you think I should include in this story as it continues. If you review, it'll help me get the next chapter out sooner. Even if its a hate review, it'll still help get the next chapter out sooner. ^^ So please, at least one review. *puppy dog eyes*

If I had any mistakes in this chapter, please tell me...


	2. Chapter 2

**This Whole Thing is a Mess**

**Disclaimer: **I don't Naruto. D: (I wish I could own it though, or at least come up with a story just as awesome. =P)

**Warning: **again, this will contain spoilers if you're not caught up with the manga. ^^

**Author Notes: **Yay for chapter 2! And thank you for the reviews from last week. ^^

* * *

**Chapter 2**

A week had passed and both Naruto and Sasuke had been released from the hospital. Sasuke had started to eat again and when asked about it, he told no one his reasons but Sakura had a growing suspicion that it had to do with what Naruto had said to him. They had been out of the hospital for three days and during those three days, Sasuke had done nothing but mope around his huge house. He didn't seem to be in a better mood since he had stopped starving himself. If anything, his mood had gotten worse.

That's the reason why Naruto and Sakura were standing outside of the Uchiha's house, waiting for the door to be answered. They had come to try and cheer Sasuke up, maybe even get him out of his house to train or something.

Naruto twitched nervously. He could feel the eyes of ANBU on him. The ANBU had been set to watch Uchiha Sasuke but knowing that didn't make it any easier for Naruto to relax under their gaze. Naruto was looking around for their harsh gazes when the door opened. Naruto snapped his blue eyes back to the door to find Sasuke, expressionless like always, standing their in some comfortable black sweats a big t-shirt.

"What do you guys want?" He asked.

Naruto put a big grin on his face, wondering how Sasuke always managed to keep his face blank. In order for Naruto hide how depressed he was, he always had to put a big sloppy smile on his face or to hide his happiness, he pouted. "We wanted to come over and get you out of your damn big house. You've been cooped up here for way to long. It must be like hell here by now."

Sasuke frowned a little. He silently agreed with Naruto. It was like hell here, but outside, with all of Konoha's people and his friends, it was even worse than hell, which made the original hell seem like heaven.(A/N: does that make sense?) "And what makes you think I want to leave with an idiot like yourself."

"Teme," Naruto pouted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Keep yourself locked away then, see if I care." He turned around childishly.

Sakura felt a small smile come onto her lips while inner Sakura was cheering. If Sasuke was insulting Naruto again, then that meant his old self was coming back a little!

"I will," Sasuke growled, then started to shut the door.

Sakura grabbed the door just before it shut. She smiled sheepishly as she ripped the door out of Sasuke's grip and opened it again. She hit Naruto on the back of his head. Hard. Naruto cringed, holding his head in hands. "What was that for?" he whined.

"For making Sasuke mad," Sakura said simply. She turned back to face a frowning Sasuke. "Just ignore that idiot."

Sasuke frowned deeper. He wished the two of them would leave him alone. The guilt in his stomach was coming back. Sasuke had wanted to stop brooding and being depressed every day but he had found that he couldn't. Every time he had tried, the guilt would come back and he couldn't face it. Not yet. It hurt to see his two ex-teammates standing before him trying to make him cheer-up. Why didn't they get it?

"I'm sorry Sakura-chan, but I'm not really up to anything today," Sasuke said a little nicer than he usually would have.

Sakura frowned, a little surprised to hear the 'chan' at the end of her name and Naruto looked up from holding his head with a sad expression. "Why?" Naruto asked. "You are never up to anything! You just sit in your damn house and mope all the time! Why can't you just lighten up some!"

Naruto's words made Sasuke cringe inwardly though he didn't show anything on the outside of his face. "Whatever," was Sasuke's only reply as he slammed the door shut.

Sakura sighed, and Naruto hunched over defeated. "That damn Sasuke," Naruto muttered. "Can't he see how much it hurts us to see him so depressed?"

Sakura nodded her agreement. "We'll have to come back tomorrow and try again." She slowly turned away from the Uchiha's house and walked away. Naruto took one glance at the door before following her. They walked together with Naruto slightly hunched and Sakura shooting worried glances at him every few steps.

When they finally had to split, Sakura patted Naruto's back trying to comfort the blond. It hurt her to see the usually hyper, excited teen so depressed. "Naruto, don't get so angry at yourself over Sasuke. I'm sure he'll eventually open up to us. He's just been through so much and he's not used to us being there for him," Sakura gave Naruto a small reassuring smile, more to reassure herself though.

Naruto straightened up, smiling. "You're right Sakura. I'm sorry." He started to walk away, feigning happiness. "Goodbye Sakura-chan," he shouted over his shoulder while waving goodbye to the pink-haired kunoichi.

Sakura waved back at the blond ninja, still smiling. She let the smile fall though as she to, continued walking towards her home.

* * *

Sasuke rested his back against the door and slowly slid down it until he was sitting with his knees pressed to his chest. He felt like he was going to cry, but his eyes had long since dried out and he knew he wouldn't. So he sat there for awhile just breathing hard.

Sasuke had no idea how long he sat there. It was the growling of his stomach that made him finally get up. He didn't want to feed his hungry stomach but he had promised to stay alive for the blond idiot, at least, he had promised it in his own head, imagining that he had been talking to Naruto. But it didn't matter whether he had spoken it aloud or not, he was still counting it as a real promise to Naruto.

Sasuke stood in his kitchen entryway, looking out the window above the sink. The abandoned and overgrown Uchiha garden was overlooked by Sasuke as he stared out the window. He was looking at the sky. It was already starting to get dark. Wow, had he been sitting at the door for that long?

Sasuke sighed, sitting down at the table with his head in his hands. He supposed that he would go over and see Naruto after he settled the rumbling in his stomach. If he was going to stay alive, he was going to have to stop sitting around and being depressed everyday. It was not good for his health.

Getting up one more time, Sasuke looked around for food. There was no need to hurry. Naruto wouldn't even mind if Sasuke decided to come over at 1:00 in the morning.

Sasuke ate slowly, trying to enjoy his meal.

* * *

Three eyes watched Konoha city gates, looking from one face poking out of the bushes. Uchiha Madara smiled evilly beneath a new orange mask that he had gotten. Night was slowly approaching as the sky started to get dark. Madara quickly ran his plan through his head one last time. He could not afford to mess up. To much of his over-all plan depended on his plan to get in and get out of Konoha safely while getting everything he needed.

The ninja quickly formed a seal and transformed into a middle-aged man. His new look was fat and hunched over. He was bald and his eyes were a pale blue. He was wearing just normal comfortable clothes that you could find on just a normal commoner. Madara took in a deep breath, while hiding his chakra signature and also how much chakra he had. He showed just enough chakra to pass as a normal person. There was nothing about him the said he knew anything about being a ninja.

Uchiha Madara stepped from the bushes and onto the road. He walked slowly to entrance gates to Konoha. He was stopped by the two ninja guards just as he knew he would be. The ninja dog came up and sniffed him, but Madara knew he wouldn't recognize his scent; he had been way to careful in preparing to let a little sniff give away his disguise. The dog gave a little bark as if to say, "he's good."

"What's your name, where are you from and what is your purpose here?" One of the guard ninja asked.

Madara let a friendly smile come over his appearance. He was well-planned for this. "My name is Tanaka, Hiroshi(A/N: first name is Hiroshi, last name Tanaka). I was living in a very small village and I've come here to look for a new job and a new life."

The guard who had spoken was nodding, satisfied with his answer while the other guard was looking a little suspicion.

The suspicious one was about to speak but the other guard got to it before him. "Go right ahead than, Hiroshi-san," he said smiling. The other guard just shut his mouth and let the disguised Madara through the gates.

Uchiha Madara didn't waste any time in congratulating himself, he had to much to do and he had little time to it in. He walked at a nice comfortable place, not wanting to rise suspicion, towards the jinchiruuki's chakra signature. Luckily, it wasn't far away. Uchiha Madara found himself outside an apartment building. He located the room the chakra was coming from and then making sure no was looking, jumped up into a tree that was right outside the room.

The tree was just outside a window to Naruto's room. Madara looked in the room, but found it empty. Madara of course, had already knew this but he let out a relieved breath anyway.

Quickly, before Naruto came into his room, Madara activated two jutsus. The first, to keep the chakra he was about to use hidden from everyone who might by trying to detect it. The second one, was to make himself absolutely invisible to the eye, nose and ear. He then sat there, waiting for the jinchuuriki to come into his room and fall asleep.

Madara didn't have to wait for long before Naruto came into his room looking tired. He collapsed onto his bed, already in his pajamas. He yawned while crawling under the sheets. He didn't even bother setting up traps or looking outside. He was careless.

Naruto fell asleep almost immediately, loud snores, echoing inside his room. Madara had to make sure he was asleep though. He activated another jutsu and probed at the blond shinibo. When he confirmed that yes, the boy was asleep, Madara prepared to do what he had come to do.

He activated the sharigan and looked at the boy. He was able to see inside the boy's mind, and he was soon standing outside Kyuubi's large cage. There was no concrete walls or dark corridors just darkness all around Madara except for Kyuubi's new cage. Kyuubi was already waiting for Madara. He had felt the chakra of the shinobi, even though Madara had carefully hidden it. There wasn't much that you could hide from a demon if anything at all.

Kyuubi growled. "What are you doing here?"

Madara ignored the kitsune as he studied the new seal on the cage. He smirked under his mask-his appearance was normal here. The seal was much weaker than it had been originally. After Naruto had separated Kyuubi from his chakra, he had no need for such a strong seal. The only thing that probably kept Kyuubi in this weak sealed cage was Naruto's strong will and the fact that Naruto had beaten the 'dark side of him'.

Kyuubi let a out a roar. "Don't ignore me, Uchiha," he growled. "What are you doing here?"

Madara frowned. "If you keep on shouting, you'll wake Naruto, and that won't do."

"So what if I do?" Kyuubi threatened. "Besides, he won't wake, he's a very deep sleeper. I've done some pretty nasty things in this cage without waking the damn brat." Kyuubi couldn't help but smirk at the memories. (A/N: do you know what type of nasty things he's talking about?)

Uchiha Madara frowned even deeper at Kyuubi's confession of doing those _gross _things to himself. "Anyway, I've come to make a proposition for you."

Kyuubi snarled. "Last time we agreed on a plan, 16 years ago, I ended up locked in this brat. Why should I agree to what you're planing now?"

Madara smirked, knowing full well that when he was done explaining the plan, Kyuubi would be practically jumping aboard.

**(Time skip! Can't have you finding out the plan just yet, can I?)**

Kyuubi was grinning as Madara finished his explanation. The end result of the plan seemed to get Kyuubi and Madara both what they wanted.

Kyuubi was still suspicious though. Madara was always scheming and he almost never let his true reasons be seen. "So why _exactly _do you need me in this plan? Couldn't you just do it by yourself?"

Madara shook his head, anticipating this question. "If I did that, Naruto might find out and come to stop me. This is the only way that I know he'll be to weak to stop me."

Kyuubi nodded, satisfied. "Fine, I'll go along then."

"Good. Then I'll need you to teach Naruto a jutsu." Madara only had to show the hand signs and explain the jutsu once for the demon to get it. "Get Naruto to do that jutsu within the next few days."

Madara pulled out of Naruto's head and back into his own body. He deactivated all the jutsus he was currently using including the sharigan. Naruto was still peacefully sleeping. Madara smirked as he recognized a chakra coming closer. _Perfect, _he thought. _I can get the second thing I came here for.

* * *

_

Sasuke had finally finished his meal and was walking towards Naruto's house. It was night already and the stars shone brightly in the sky above. A light breeze swept through the streets, cooling him. He walked slowly, letting himself enjoy the cool short-walk, his mind temporarily forgetting about all his troubles.

When he got within a street of the blond's apartment, he stopped suddenly. _No, _was the only word that rung through his heads. He could feel a slight chakra signature up ahead that Sasuke recognized but it didn't belong to Naruto. _No._

Sasuke began running towards Naruto apartment. _No_. _It can't be. He can't be here already. _Sasuke stopped when he felt the chakra just a few yards from him. His eyes quickly snapped to the person it was coming from. He definitely didn't recognize the fat man but he knew that it was Uchiha Madara. The chakra didn't lie.

Uchiha Madara met Sasuke's eyes before jumping away from the tree and running away. He had to turn into a skinnier from of the man he was disguised as, to let himself run as fast as he wanted to go. He raced over the rooftops, faster than most ninja had ever been capable of. Madara could have ran faster but he had to make sure Sasuke kept on following him.

Sasuke was a little startled to see Madara running from him. He knew right away that this meant that the bastard wanted him to follow him but knowing this didn't make Sasuke stop chasing after the man. He had to know why he was here watching Naruto! What was he planning?

Madara led Sasuke over the walls off Konoha and into the forest surrounding the city. Sasuke almost stopped to go and get help but he knew that by then, the other Uchiha would be long gone. He was forced to keep following. He felt the ANBU, who had been watching him, stop following him. Sasuke cursed under his breath. He knew he was heading straight into a trap and without the ANBU's help he had no hope to survive.

They had gone about three miles from Konoha when Sasuke finally decided to give up the chase. He stopped, panting. It was useless to keep on following Madara. Sasuke turned around to head back to the village and report what he had seen to Tsunade. After his first steps though, he was suddenly surrounded by about a hundred Zetsu's. Sasuke cursed under his breath. He knew that even with his superb ninja skill, he wouldn't be able to beat a hundred Zetsu!

_Why didn't I predict this! _Sasuke yelled at himself. _I saw Madara's army of Zetsu's back when I worked with him and yet I didn't predict that he would use them. Besides, I thought all of them were dead._

Uchiha Madara appeared before Sasuke out of the army. He had turned back into his normal appearance. "Thought all my Zetsu's had died, huh? Wrong. I decided to keep about a hundred, just in case. Good thing I did." Madara smirked while flicking his wrist to tell the army to attack.

Sasuke quickly activated the sharigan and got into fighting a stance. A plan quickly formed in his head as the first few Zetsus attacked.

* * *

**A/N:** I'm evil aren't I? Aren't you just dying to know what'll happen to Sasuke and Naruto now?

I'm not sure I like the fake name I used to Uchiha Madara. D: I just searched some common names for Japenese... Sorry if you guys hate the name

Hmm. I think I'm moving really fast in this story. The thing is I'm not good with coming up with fillers so my stories are plot and more plot with small fillers that usually lead to more plot. xP

I'm so proud of myself because I added foreshadowing in this chapter! The obvious one was them planning their plan but there was a little more than that, but it was probably obvious to. xP

Anyway, please give me your reviews, and maybe I'll update faster, or just as fast. I was originally going to post this on Saturday but I just got to excited and decided to post it now.

**IMPORTANT: **Question! Would you like me to go into depth about Sasuke's battle? or should I just say this and this happened? Please tell me if you want me to try and write out the battle out in detail or not. (I'm not sure if I'd be any good at it though... but it would be good practice .=/ and yes, I'm giving you a reason to review. =D)


	3. Chapter 3

**This Whole Thing Is a Mess**

**Disclaimer: **I wished I owned Naruto but I don't!

**A/N: **Chapter 3! You should be proud of me. =P

* * *

**Last Chapter:**

They had gone about three miles from Konoha when Sasuke finally decided to give up the chase. He stopped, panting. It was useless to keep on following Madara. Sasuke turned around to head back to the village and report what he had seen to Tsunade. After his first steps though, he was suddenly surrounded by about a hundred Zetsus. Sasuke cursed under his breath. He knew that even with his superb ninja skill, he wouldn't be able to beat a hundred Zetsu!

_Why didn't I predict this! _Sasuke yelled at himself. _I saw Madara's army of Zetsus back when I worked with him and yet I didn't predict that he would use them. Besides, I thought all of them were dead._

Uchiha Madara appeared before Sasuke out of the army. He had turned back into his normal appearance. "Thought all my Zetsus had died, huh? Wrong. I decided to keep about a hundred, just in case. Good thing I did." Madara smirked while flicking his wrist to tell the army to attack.

Sasuke quickly activated the sharigan and got into fighting a stance. A plan quickly formed in his head as the first few Zetsus attacked.

* * *

**And now... Chapter 3!**

An ANBU with a dog mask stopped on a roof, silently watched as his subject of following ran over the Konoha walls, chasing after a man that they didn't recognize but had to be ninja because he had transformed. A second later, another ANBU with a bird mask stopped next to him. The bird mask ANBU was cursing under his breath as he watched the man they were following disappear over the wall.

Silently, the two ANBU looked at each other and nodded. They needed to report this right away. Both of them made a couple of hand signs and not a second later, poofs could be heard and where they had been standing, white smoke exploded.

**(scene change)**

Tsunade looked over her papers, not really seeing them. She glanced up at Shizune who was watching her with Tonton in her arms.

"Can I please go get a bottle of sake?" Tsunade whined. She dropped the papers on her desk and let out a loud sigh. "I've been working for to long."

"No," Shizune answered promptly. "You need to finish this paperwork!"

Tsunade groaned. She had been continuously begging for Shizune to let her take a break but her assistant wouldn't budge. _If only I could use my super-strength to _make _her budge, _Tsunade smirked at her thoughts.

Suddenly, two poofs of smoke appeared in Tsunade's office. Tsunade stood, aggravated that someone had just decided to come into her office without even using the door! "Who are you and you better have a good reason for intruding!" Tsunade yelled..

As the smoke cleared, Tsunade was faced with two ANBU, one with a dog-mask and another with a bird-mask. Tsunade calmed a little, but not by much. "Why are you two, not following Sasuke?"

"Tsunade-sama," they said in unison. Then the dog-mask took over saying, "Sasuke Uchiha has left the village. We saw him chasing after a man that we did not know and he left the village doing so."

"Oh dear god," Tsunade said, plopping back into her seat, her hand on her temple. She took a few seconds to gather her thoughts before she was again standing and shouting her orders. "I need you to gather ten other ANBU and tell them to search in a three-mile radius of the village. If Sasuke is not found within those three miles then it will be declared that once again he is a missing-nin. If he is found, then he will be taken straight to me. Any evidence they find of why he might have left is also to be reported to me." Tsunade took a small breath, pausing. "Also, you two are to guard the city's entrance gates and if he comes back, take him straight to me. If he is not found tonight, then you two will be stuck as guarding the entrance gates until further notice or until he has come back."

The two ANBU nodded in understanding, making mental notes of everything she had just told them.

"Now go!" Tsunade shouted at them. As soon as they left, she slumped into her chair, rubbing her head and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Dear god, how am I ever going to Naruto that Sasuke left the village again?" she asked herself. Then, looking back at Shizune who had stood there quietly, she said, "I could really use that sake now."

* * *

Sasuke's plan became clearer as the Zetsus attacked him. He wasn't going on the attack yet and was just trying to dodge every attack thrown at him. He was doing a fairly good job at that. Sasuke was a master when it came to avoiding attacks. Well, he was pretty much a master at anything that had to do with fighting.

He was slowing though. He could already feel himself getting tired from always avoiding. For the last week that he had been in Konoha, he had barely eaten and had abused his body and now it's mark of doing so was showing. On top of all that, he hadn't used any of his ninja skills since his fight with Naruto which had been about a week and a half ago. Before, in order to stay as good as he was, Sasuke had needed to practice nearly every day, but now he hadn't practiced in what seemed like an eternity. He couldn't keep this fight up for much longer.

This is what Sasuke based his plan on. He knew he couldn't beat all the Zetsus and if some miracle happened and he did, Madara would just swoop in and finish the last blow. Besides, he had a growing suspicion that Madara wasn't planning on killing him. No, if that was his plan, Madara could've done it already. Madara had something else planned for Sasuke.

So, if he could not beat the Zetsus and Madara wasn't going to kill him, what was the point in trying to beat them? He would just waste energy that might be important to have later on. Sasuke knew that he was going to have to fall into Uchiha Madara's plan of being captured, but he was quickly forming _another _plan of getting free.

Sasuke finally started to go on the attack. He purposely started using his chakra sloppily, activating a few different types of chidori's here and there. Using his chakra as unproficient as he could, he was quickly losing all of it.

He had barely managed to kill 20 of the Zetsus, which was still good because he hadn't really been aiming on killing any of them, when he collapsed to the ground completely exhausted of chakra. He could barely keep his eyes open and everything was going fuzzy. His symptoms of tiredness could have been a hundred times though, if he had fought 100%. It wouldn't take too long for his chakra to restore itself.

Uchiha Madara looked at Sasuke, pleased. He called the Zetsus who had been attacking the other Uchiha off. He walked up to the beaten Uchiha and watched as Sasuke's eyes tried to focus on him. He knew that Sasuke had not fought with his whole strength, and to tell the truth, this made Madara even more pleased. This told him that Sasuke had a plan to get free of his clutches, which was not bad at all for Madara.

The evil man, picked up Sasuke and swung him over his shoulder. He quickly preformed his space-time jutsu to teleport them back to his lair. The Zetsus slowly mingled into the plants and trees of the forest and made their own there as well.

So, why does Uchiha Madara not just kill Sasuke? What is the point of keeping Sasuke alive? It's because Uchiha Madara still have plenty of plans meant for Sasuke. Sasuke was still going to be useful for him in many ways.

* * *

An ANBU was currently three miles from Konoha. There was another nine ANBU also searching in a three mile radius but they had all split up. This ANBU stepped into a clearing cautiously and what he found completely shocked him, though it didn't show.

The whole clearing was marked with signs from a previous battle. The marks were still fresh so the ANBU concluded that the fight had only taken a few minutes before. If only he had been a little faster and a little less cautious, he could've made it here before that battle had ended.

The ANBU quickly searched out the remains of chakra that were still lingering in the battle scene. It wasn't long before he picked out three different chakras. One was Sasuke Uchiha's, another, from the plant ninja-guy Zetsu, and finally, Uchiha Madara's. The ANBU had a snarl underneath his mask. So, Sasuke had been caught by Uchiha Madara. At least, Sasuke hadn't gone willingly if the battle scene was telling the truth and he had struggled.

The ANBU didn't waste anymore time, before performing a seal and poofing to the hokage's office. He appeared right in front of Tsunade's desk which was currently vacant. The ANBU silently cursed. Where was the woman when you needed her?

Luckily, he didn't have to wait long before he could hear footsteps and the door to the office being opened. Tsunade appeared, holding a few papers, with Shizune right behind her.

"Hokage-sama," The ANBU called to her urgently.

Tsunade looked surprised to see him and she had to quickly run through her memories as to why there might be a ANBU in her office. Suddenly, she remembered. She rushed over to the ANBU, and stood right before him. She had almost grabbed the top of his shirt in a threatening way before she stopped herself.

"What is it? Did you find any clues on Sasuke?" She inquired.

The ANBU took a step back from the frightening hokage. _I hope she doesn't bite my head off when I tell her this, or punch my insides out, _he quickly thought before answering her question. "I'm sorry, but I found proof that Sasuke was captured by Uchiha Madara."

Tsunade back away from the ANBU, a sad expression on her face. "So, Uchiha Madara _is _still alive." She shook her slightly, trying to clear her head. "Tell me exactly what you found," she waved her hand at the ANBU telling him to continue.

"There was a battle scene hat when I searched for the chakras, I found Sasuke's, Madara's and the Zetsus'. It seemed that Sasuke had put up a struggle against about a hundred Zetsus. I concluded, with signs from the battle scene, that he had lost. There wasn't a sign of him walking away so I'm guessing that Madara used his space-time jutsu. If that is so, then it will be impossible to track them."

Tsunade listened silently. When he was finished she shook her had sadly. "Damn," she whispered, to quiet for the ANBU to hear. She took a deep breath. "Okay, than we will conclude that Uchiha Sasuke was captured and possibly killed by Uchiha Madara. Go and find the rest of the searching ANBU to tell them to stop. As for the ANBU at the gates, tell them to stay there just in case Sasuke somehow escapes and comes back to the village. If that is the case, he is to be taken straight to me."

The ANBU nodded and then left, leaving just Tsunade and Shizune.

"Shizune, I need you to go find Naruto and tell him that Sasuke was captured by Uchiha Madara. Tell him that we have it under control and he can't leave the village. This is probably just a trap so as long as he doesn't go after Sasuke, Madara will keep Sasuke alive."

Shizune nodded and left.

"Damn, Madara, what _exactly _are you planning?"

* * *

Naruto was currently fast asleep in his room. His sleep was dreamless, but it was a very deep sleep. He didn't wake up when someone was knocking on his apartment door. He didn't even get up when that same somebody had trespassed into his room and was shaking him and yelling his name for him to wake. All Naruto did in response was turn over and drool on his pillow.

He did wake up though, when he had a bucket of cold water dumped onto his head. He sat up spluttering, and shivering from the cold water. He looked around for the culprit who had done this to him. His clear blue eyes stopped on Shizune who was standing there with a bucket in her hands.

Naruto got out of his bed, and stood right before Shizune and shook her. "What was that for!" he yelled crankily. He hated being waken from his sleep. "You better have a good reason for dumping a bucket of water on me!"

Shizune smiled sheepishly, trying to pry Naruto's grip from her shoulders, his hands shaking her back and forth. When he finally let go, she let out a sigh and rubbed her sore arms. "I'm sorry Naruto-kun, its just that I have something important to tell you but you wouldn't wake up."

Naruto now had a confused look on his face. "Something important?" The wheels in his mind slowly went to work and of course, he jumped to a conclusion. "Is Tsunade-baa-chan(A/N:is that correct?) deciding to let me be hokage!" Naruto shouted happily.

Shizune sighed. "Um... No, she's not." Naruto's face fell. "I have something else to tell you and its not good news."

Naruto put a worried look on his face. "What is it?"

"Well, you see.." Shizune started awkwardly. _Tsunade-sama just _had _to give me the job of telling him, didn't she? _"You see, Sasuke's been captured by Uchiha Madara."

"NANI?" Naruto shouted."I have to go after him then." Naruto started running around his room, trying to find clean clothes to put on.

"You see, Naruto, that's the thing," Shizune said while trying to stop Naruto. "Going after him will only make things worse. This is probably a trap, so if you go after Sasuke, Madara will kill him after he gets his hands on you."

Naruto gulped, stopping. "Yeah, but if I don't go, then Madara will also kill Sasuke eventually. Either way, he's going to die." Naruto sniffed as he felt the tears threatening to spill. "I guess you're right though, it won't help him I go after him. I'll only get caught and then Madara will destroy _everything_."

"I'm glad that you get it Naruto," Shizune said relieved. "It would have been really bad if we had to chase after you."

"Yeah," Naruto said quietly.

Shizune left him alone, feeling guilty about what she had told the blond.

When Shizune left, Naruto's knees buckled, and he fell onto his bed. Tears were slipping out now. _We just got you back Sasuke, and you're already gone._ At this thought the tears came more fiercely.

Eventually, the tears stopped and Naruto's eyes were dry. His throat hurt from the sobbing he had been doing. _Maybe if I just killed myself, then I wouldn't make everyone go through all of this. If I just killed myself, then Madara would have no way of getting hold of Kyuubi and everyone would be safe from the ten-tailed bijuu. _Naruto thought this over for awhile. _Yes, I'm going to have to kill myself._

**Brat! **Kyuubi suddenly spoke inside of Naruto's head. **There is no way, that I'm letting you kill us.**

_You don't even have choice in the matter, _Naruto thought back to the demon. _You don't have any power at all._

**I may not be able to control what you do, but I have a much better answer than letting you kill yourself and me, **Kyuubi snarled.

_You do? _Naruto asked curiously. He was relieved, he really hadn't wanted to kill himself but he would have if it had meant that everyone was safe.

**Yes, I do, **Kyuubi said proudly. **I happen to know a jutsu that'll allow you to go back in time. If you use this jutsu, you can go back in time and save Sasuke from ever going to Orochimaru and turning evil. Then you can go off and kill Uchiha Madara so that no is ever again threatened by him.** Kyuubi didn't have a hard time lying, he had done it so many other times in his life.

Naruto was ready to jump into this plan even without asking the on question he wondering but he asked it anyway. _Why would you show this to me? What's in it for you._

Kyuubi scoffed. **Isn't it obvious? ****You told me that you were going to kill us. By showing you this, it prevents myself from being killed! I do not want to be killed.**

Naruto nodded, satisfied. _Okay! I'll do it then. Teach me this jutsu._

**Okay, **Kyuubi answered, smiling inwardly. He quickly showed Naruto the hand signs and told him how to preform the jutsu. **Now remember, you can't use any of my chakra, or it won't work. And you should do this now before telling anyone. They'd stop you if they found out.**

_Hai, _Naruto. He pulled out of his head, and prepared to do the jutsu, sitting on his bed.

* * *

**In the Past(before Naruto comes back in time)**

Naruto sat in apartment, slurping down roman. He was quivering with excitement as his mind was dreaming about what tomorrow would be like.

Today, Naruto had just gotten his genin team which consisted of himself, Sakura Haruno, a hot babe, and that Sasuke-teme. Their new sensei would be Kakashi, who Naruto didn't really like so far. Kakashi seemed like a lazy and perverted man. But tomorrow, Naruto would prove himself against Kakashi and his new team. He was going to pass the final test to bcome a genin team. No, he was going to ace it!

Naruto finished his cup ramen and threw it away. He quickly stripped and got in some pajamas before crawling into bed. He didn't think he would be able to sleep because of all his excitement, but as soon as he closed his eyes, he fell asleep right away.

Naruto was in a deep sleep and didn't realize it when a bright flash of light developed him.

**End of Chapter 3!**

* * *

Finally, I've gotten to the time travel part of this fic.! From here on out, it might get confusing because it'll be switching between future and past. I'll try to make it as clear as possible though.

Please review. ^^


	4. Chapter 4

**This Whole Thing is a Mess**

**disclaimer: **How many times do I have to say that Naruto is not mine!If it was, the whole plot would be messed up and confusing... just like this story probably is.

**A/N: **Ok, I've finally hit the time-travel part in this fic! Yay! That means that it is probably going to start getting confusing. D: Hopefully, I'll explain things good enough in this chapter so no one is confused. Oh and thanks for the reviews so far. I'm loving them! ^^

* * *

**Chapter 4!**

**(In the past AFTER Naruto travels back in time)**

Naruto groaned as he sat up in bed. His head was in immense pain, and he grabbed it as he swung his legs off the side of his bed. He was surprised when he didn't feel the cold wooden floor beneath his feet. He looked down, slowly, as to not cause anymore pain in his head, and saw that his feet only hung to about halfway down the side of his bed.

"That's a little odd," he said to himself out loud. "Did I like drink something that made me shrink a whole lot or something?"

Naruto tried to remember what had happened last night, but when he did, the pain in his head only got worse. He quickly gave up. "Eventually, it'll just come to me anyway. Until then, I'll have to be short," Naruto said. "Besides, this might be a dream."

Naruto stood up and wobbled onto his feet to the bathroom where he studied himself in the mirror above the sink. "Yes, this is definitely a dream," he said as looked at himself. He was short, just like when he was 12. In fact, all his appearances looked exactly like when he was 12, he was even wearing his silly nightcap. "I wonder why I'd be dreaming myself being 12 again..."

Naruto grimaced after he shook his head to his last question. "But why would my head hurt so bad?" Naruto sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "I guess I may as well get ready, then I can go see if anything else is weird around here. Darn, I'm probably going to have to wear my old orange jumpsuit. I can't believe I used to wear that thing. My new one is way better."

Naruto continued to have a little conversation with himself as he found his old orange suit and got dressed. Right as he finished zipping up the front and had put his blue headband on, he heard the door-bell.

"Who could it be at this early in the day?" Naruto asked himself. He glanced at his clock by bed which read 11:38. Even in dreams, he guessed, teenagers needed a lot of sleep.

Naruto walked to the door, yawning. The pain in his head was slowly subsiding, but he still couldn't remember what had happened last night. He opened the door to reveal a 12-year-old Sakura in her normal pink dress with white circles and Kakashi-sensei, reading his little orange book as usual. _They must be part of this dream, _Naruto thought. Then he looked behind Kakashi and saw a brooding young Sasuke.

Suddenly, the memories of last night came rushing back to his mind. His eyes widened and he slammed the door shut in his teammates faces. He put his back against the door breathing hard. _Oh god, I came back in time because Sasuke was going to die in the future. How could I _forget _that? Damn Kyuubi, you never told me that I was going to be in my younger body again!_

Kyuubi chuckled deep inside of Nar_uto. _**I actually had no idea that you were going to come back in time. **

_What do you mean? You're the one who told me how to do the jutsu and e__verything!_ Naruto yelled inside his head.

**No, that was probably myself in the future who told you that, **Kyuubi growled. **I have no idea what this jutsu is or what it does exactly. **

_Wait, did you not come back in time with me then? _Naruto asked. _Then what happened to you in the future?_

Kyuubi snorted. **How would I know?**** If you must know, I'm guessing that your younger self went forward in time into your older body and me in the future is still trapped.**

Naruto sighed relieved. _Well, that's good. Ok, now I've got to put on my game-face and start pretending to be 12 again! How hard could it be?_

Naruto turned around and opened again. His team was still standing there with shocked expressions that were slowly turning to anger. Naruto rubbed the back of his head and put a smile on his lips. "Um... sorry, about that. I wasn't expecting to see you guys this early." _Man, I have no idea what they were planning to do._

"Early!" Sakura nearly screamed. "It's almost noon, and we were supposed to be waiting at the training grounds at 5:00 AM to wait for Kakashi-sensie to show up to give us the final genin test!"

Naruto's mouth fell open. _I'm not even a full genin yet! _"Really, its already noon?" he said, trying to play dumb. "I must've overslept or something."

Sakura glared at Naruto. "How can you oversleep for seven _hours! _We looked all over town for you after Kakashi showed up at nine, and we find out that you've been _sleeping? _Naruto, I swear, if you prevent Sasuke and me from becoming true genin, I'll _kill _you!"

Naruto gulped, and backed away from his scary pink-haired teammate.

Kakashi put his orange book down finally, noticing that Sakura was shouting threats. "Calm down Sakura, he's not prevented you from being a genin, but since he was later than I was, the test I will give you, will just have to be harder."

This calmed Sakura down a bit, but she was still glaring daggers at the blond. She had to pass this test so she could stay with Sasuke!

"Now come on, Naruto," Kakashi said. "Lets go take that test."

"But I haven't eat-" Naruto stopped mid-sentence at Sakura's hardening glare. _Oh, right, we aren't supposed to eat breakfast. That way we'll be starving when we take this test. _"I'm coming!" He shouted as he pulled on his shoes and his teammates started walking away. Naruto jumped up and ran after them, falling in line right by Sasuke.

Sasuke gave him a look of 'Whatever, idiot. I don't care about you.' Naruto answered by glaring back at him. _Gosh, Sasuke is such a bastard at this time. Well, he was still a bastard in the future but he was starting to change, at least, before stupid Uchiha Madara had to capture him again! _Naruto glared even harder, now remembering Madara's name. _I swear, Sasuke, I'm going to save you this time through!_

When they got to the training grounds, Kakashi started to explain the drill they were going to do. He told them that they had until 5:00 PM to get the bells from them and if they didn't, they'd have to go without food. Sakura, and even Sasuke, although only slightly, groaned at this. They hadn't eaten at all today, no thanks to Naruto. They both glared at Naruto for being late.

Naruto was spacing out during the time Kakashi explained everything. He was remembering the last time they had taken this test. He had been so stupid rushing in like that. Naruto smirked, he knew this test was all about working together but still, who needed teamwork when he had his awesome powers that he could just use. He started thinking about what he should use against Kakashi and how to beat the perverted man, completely forgetting about pretending to _not _be from the future.

"Go!" Kakashi yelled, snapping Naruto from his thoughts. Sasuke and Sakura disappeared into the forest, hiding behind bushes. Naruto just stood there.

_Stupid kid, _Kakashi thought. _Well, this is the dead-last. _"Naruto, ninja's are supposed to use _stealth _to take out an enemy."

Naruto puffed out his chest proudly. "Who needs stealth when you are an awesome ninja like me?" he boasted, almost bursting out in laughter. This is how is younger self would have acted, and it was so funny how boastful he had been back then. He was having a blast acting the part of his obnoxious younger self.

Naruto formed a seal and shouted, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Right away, a shadow-clone appeared to his left. Naruto held out his left hand and the shadow clone started hitting the air by the original's palm, trying to get a Rasengan starting. A few chakra lines starting forming, swirling around, but then they faded. Naruto stared at his hand in shock. Why wasn't the Rasengan forming?

He looked back at Kakashi, smiling. "Um.. Never mind. I'll go hide now." With that, the shadow-clone disappeared and Naruto ran off to hide.

Kakashi's one visible eye widened as Naruto ran off. That was the fourth's Jutsu, Rasengan. Sure, Naruto hadn't completely done it, but he had started doing it. How did Naruto know about a jutsu like that? It shouldn't even be possible for him to be able to attempt at doing it. _Naruto must be stronger than he looks. _

**_._...**

"Damn!" Naruto growled, staring at his hands. "Why can't I do the Rasengan? It was so easy before but now its so hard!" He was deep inside the forest, far away from Kakashi and the others. Using both of his hands, he tried to create the spinning chakra ball again, but came up short. "Why is it so hard to focus chakra?"

**That might be because you don't have any of your powers, **Kyuubi answered his question. **This body is weak and fragile and can't do anything. Of course, if you want me to take over, I'd be happy to oblige.**

_Like that's ever going to happen, _Naruto thought, rolling his eyes.

**Brat, you should be more thankful for a great powerful demon inside of you! I've helped you in many ways and when do you ever repay me? **Kyuubi snarled.

Naruto blocked the Kyuubi out. He sighed, once again looking at his hands. _Damn, this is going to even harder to save Sasuke from Orochimaru! I'm just going to have to train this body again. Oh joy. _"Well, for now, I guess I'm going to have to use some teamwork to beat Kakashi-sensei."

* * *

**(now its the future after Naruto has traveled back in time)**

Naruto slowly sat up in bed, his head throbbing in pain. _I have to get up to go to the training grounds, _was his only thought as he fought through the pain and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. To say he was surprised when he felt the floor underneath his feet would be a huge understatement. Naruto looked down at his feet and was completely overjoyed. He forgot about the pain in his head and jumped up screaming, "I've grown! I've grown!" He jumped around in his joy, not even considering the fact that it was impossible to grow as much as he did, overnight. "Now I can go see Sakura-chan and be tall! Maybe she'll like me more!"

Suddenly, the pain in his head came back a hundred times fiercer. Naruto groaned and dropped to his knees, holding his head. _Why does my head hurt this much, _he managed to think. He could barely hear anything through the throbbing pain, so he didn't hear the knocking on his door as he held his head in hands, groaning from the pain. He also didn't hear the door opening.

"Naruto!" It was Sakura's voice. She was looking at Naruto with worry. She bent down and put her hands on his shoulders. "Are you alright, Naruto?"

Naruto looked up with hazy eyes. "S-sakura-chan?" Naruto took a few deeps breaths, the pain starting to go away. "I'm fine, thanks though." _Wow, she actually cares about me. That's a surprise, but a good one at that. Believe it! _He stood up, and Sakura followed shortly.

Naruto compared their heights. "Hey Sakura-chan, we both grew whole bunch over the night! Isn't it great. Maybe I've even taller than Sasuke-teme."

Sakura looked at Naruto slightly confused. "You haven't grown in awhile, Naruto. You've been this tall for a long time. And since when did you start calling Sasuke, Sasuke-teme again?"

"What do you mean? I've never stopped calling him Sasuke-teme," Naruto said. "And yesterday, I was like only this tall." Naruto waved his hand in the air to represent how tall he was before.

Sakura laughed. "Naruto, are trying to play a joke on me? Its impossible to grow that tall overnight!"

"Its _supposed _to be impossible, but obviously we both grew about that much!" Naruto looked outside and realized that it was about noon. "Oh crap! We're late!"

Kyuubi was silently chuckling to himself. _Naruto is so funny. He has no idea that he came to the future! I'm enjoying this for now, so my plans can wait for a little longer. Besides, Madara told me to wait for a couple days. But my plans_ will_ come. _Kyuubi licked his lips at the thought.

"Late, for what?" Sakura said. "Do you have a mission? Why would Tsunade-sama, give you a mission? Especially now..." Sakura trailed off, suddenly remembering about Sasuke. She too, had been informed about him being captured again.

"Who's Tsunade?" Naruto asked. "And what do you mean? We have to meet Kakashi-sensei at the training grounds to become true genin. We were supposed to be there at five o' clock sharp! Now I'm not going to become a genin!"

"Naruto, are you feeling alright?" Sakura asked, worried. "That happened years ago. I'm already a chunin and you've been a genin for like, forever. Actually, you _should _be a jounin by now."

"Sakura, I know you're trying to fool me," Naruto laughed. "You just don't want me on a team with you so you can have Sasuke all to yourself."

Sakura's mouth dropped. "What! I'm not messing around. We're like almost 17 now, why would we be just becoming genin?"

"We're not that old. We're only 12," Naruto said plainly. Why was Sakura trying to mess with his head?

"Naruto, what is the last thing you remember?" Sakura asked, a theory having suddenly popped up into her head.

"Why would you ask that?" Naruto asked, completely confused. "The last thing I remember is going to sleep yesterday after finding out our genin teams and meeting our new sensei."

Sakura sighed, putting her hand on her temple. "I think you might have amnesia. Since you don't seem to remember _anything_ since we got our genin teams when we were twelve. I'm going to have to take you to Tsunade-sama."

"Amnesia!" Naruto yelled. "How could I have gotten amnesia! I remember everything clearly, you're just trying to mess with me." Sakura started to drag Naruto out of his apartment, not even letting him get his clothes on. Naruto struggled for a bit, but eventually calmed down. "Who's Tsunade?"

"The hokage!" Sakura snapped back at him.

* * *

**(still future but scene change)**

Sasuke blinked his eyes open, getting used to the light. He felt himself bound and gagged. His arms were tightly tied behind him and his ankles were also tied tightly. He felt the ropes cut into his skin, almost deep enough to make him bleed. He was laying on the floor and struggled to sit up. It took awhile, but eventually he managed.

Sasuke looked around, making sure that Madara wasn't there. He was deep inside a cave lighted by a whole bunch of candles hanging on the wall. It reminded him of one of Orochimaru's hideouts. Once he confirmed that Madara wasn't there, he channeled a bit of chakra into the ropes. Sure enough, the ropes resisted the chakra, although the resistance was weak and Sasuke knew that with enough chakra, they would break. _Weird, Madara must be getting a little cocky if he doesn't think I can break through these. _Sasuke shook his head. _Either that, or there is another trap waiting._

"So, you've finally woke up."

Sasuke turned his face to see Uchiha Madara standing a few feet in front of him. Madara smirked under his mask, walked over to Sasuke and pushed his head back to the ground with his foot.

"Well, since you're going to be trapped here, and since you're _dying _to know what I am planning to do with Naruto, I think I'll tell you. There's no chance of you escaping anyhow, and I have something I want you to do in my plan."

Sasuke looked up at Madara. _Is he really just going to tell me his plans? This has to be a trap._

Madara kept his foot on top of Sasuke's head as he spoke. "You see, Naruto has become to strong for me to handle, which is why I came up with this mastermind plan. All I had to do was get Naruto to switch places with his younger soul. That way, Naruto would have none of his powers in the past _and_ in the future, since his younger self wouldn't know how to use them." Madara looked down at Sasuke to make sure he was listening. "Then, I'll go back in time myself and snatch a weak and helpless Naruto away and come back into the future. I'll take the Kyuubi out of him and finally create the ten-tailed bijuu. As for his younger soul, I have no idea what'll happen to him and the Kyuubi. And, as for you, I'm going to using you as bait."

Sasuke would have gasped if not for the gag in his mouth. This was horrible! Now he _really _had to escape and tell the hokage what was going to happen!

Madara took his foot off of Sasuke's head. "After I capture Naruto, I'll have no use left for you and I'll kill you," he said, leaning down towards Sasuke to make the threat more real. "Look forward to your future, things could be a lot worse. Maybe if you hadn't left me, this wouldn't have happened to you." Madara walked out of the cave again, leaving Sasuke to himself.

_I have to get out of here before he comes back, _Sasuke thought urgently. He started to put immense chakra into the ropes, wanting to break them.

**End of Chapter 4!

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**

**A/N: **Well, I hoped you liked it. I would really love some more reviews. *puppy dog eyes* I want to know that people are still reading my story and I'm not just updating for no one. D:

Um... I hope that wasn't confusing for anyone... If you are confused, all you really need to know is that Naruto's older soul went back in time and is in his younger body while his younger soul went forward in time and is in his older body. Their powers have pretty switched. And the Kyuubi's stayed in the same time as they were. (I hope that helped.)

Also, I got the idea for them thinking Naruto had amnesia from this other fanfic(forgot what it called though.D:) where Hinata gets amnesia and thinks that she is 12 again.

I;m also sorry for Kyuubi being out of character. I'm not good at writing him all mean and nasty while he's trying to explain things to Naruto. Besides, I guess you could say he's being nice so his plan works out.

Anyway, I'll get the next chapter out soon. ^^


	5. Chapter 5

**This Whole Thing Is a Mess**

**Disclaimer: **Do I really have to say this again? I don't own Naruto. =/

**A/N: **I'm so happy! This is chapter 5! By the looks of it, this fic will probably be longer than 10 chapters! I've never written a story this long. =D(mostly because I give up on my stories on _PAGE_ 10 =P) You guys should be so proud of me.

* * *

**Chapter 5!**

**(In the past)**

Naruto was running back towards the training grounds. When he came close to it, he slowed down and then stopped, trying to calm his harsh breathing. It was amazing how out-of shape this body was. He felt like he was going to die of not-enough oxygen. He was going to have to start cutting down on the ramen. Big time.

Once his breathing was down to a normal pace, Naruto started his search to find Sasuke. If he had been in his older body, Naruto would have just searched for Sasuke's chakra but now, he could barely sense chakra. So instead, he created five shadow clones and sent them all in different directions. When one disappeared, Naruto turned in that direction and ran off to the place the shadow clone had disappeared, making the other 4 shadow clones dispel as well.

He stopped just a little from the spot to make sure that he wasn't walking into a trap set by Kakashi- sensei.

It wasn't.

Naruto looked up to see Sasuke was sitting on a tree branch, peering through the leaves, probably looking at Kakashi. Naruto smiled to himself when he realized that Sasuke didn't notice him.

Using his ninja stealth, Naruto climbed up the tree and sat right behind Sasuke. Reaching out, Naruto poked Sasuke on the shoulder, whispering, "Sasuke-teme."

Sasuke was so frightened and surprised when he felt the poke that he flinched and almost fell out of the tree. Sasuke was one who never showed surprise at anything. He had seen some crazy, surprising things in his life, but he had showed no movement or expression that said he was surprised and so this was a blow to his pride. Sasuke turned around and glared at the blond idiot. How had he even managed to get up here so quietly!

"What do you want, dobe?" Sasuke hissed under his breath. "I don't need you getting in my way, I need to pass this so I can become stronger."

Naruto rolled his eyes. _No, you don't need to become stronger! You're just going to end up hurting yourself if you don't give up you ambitions, _Naruto yelled at Sasuke in his mind.

"Well, I thought we should use teamwork!" Naruto said, grinning. "While I could take Kakashi-sensei myself, I have a feeling that Kakashi is holding this test to look and see if we have any teamwork! So even if I, or you, I guess, got the bells from him by ourselves, he still wouldn't pass us."

"What makes you think that?" Sasuke asked. Why didn't Naruto go off and bother Sakura with his plans?

"Because I've heard of these types of tests before!" Naruto said harshly. "Besides, genin need to have good teamwork, otherwise their teams won't succeed, so it would only make sense if he was testing us on our teamwork." _Plus, I just happened to have done this whole test before, _Naruto added in his own head.

"Hn," Sasuke replied, looking back into clearing. Kakashi was gone. He turned back around, glaring at Naruto again. "You made me loose Kakashi. But fine, I suppose we could team up. Should we get Sakura though?"

"Nah," Naruto said. "Besides, once she sees us together, she'll want to come join in on the teamwork. And if not, we'll just have to give her a bell after we've got them. Kakashi-sensei will still pass all of us."

Sasuke nodded in understanding. "Well, now we have to find him."

Naruto grinned. "Don't worry, I have that covered." He created another five shadow clones and sent them off to search for their sensei. It took a minute or two, but eventually one of the shadow clones disappeared and Naruto knew where Kakashi was. "Here, this way," Naruto said jumping down from the tree and once again making the other shadow clones disappear as well.

Sasuke jumped down next to him. "How do you know where he is?" he asked.

_Wow, Sasuke actually doesn't know and is asking me! There's a first time from everything, I suppose. _"I sent my shadow clones out to search for him. Any information they find will come back to me when they disappear."

"So they're actually useful," Sasuke mused.

"Hey!" Naruto growled. "They can be used for more than just that! I find them very useful in battle."

Sasuke actually chuckled. "Zero times however many shadow clones you create is still zero."

Naruto pouted, turning away from Sasuke and started to walk off, his feet pounding against the forest floor and his arms crossed over his chest. Sasuke silently followed.

Eventually, they found Kakashi. They crouched below a bush, watching their target.

"Got any plans?" Naruto asked quietly. He knew that Kakashi could hear them talking but it really didn't matter to him. The more Kakashi knew that they were using teamwork, the better.

"Yeah," Sasuke answered. "Distract him with your shadow clones. Make him think that you are being an idiot and attacking by yourself, and then I'll jump on him from above and tackle him and hopefully get the bells."

Naruto stuck out his tongue at Sasuke. "Of course _you _get to have all the glory. But fine, I'll do it."

Sasuke smirked. "I think he would now something was up if I just attacked him out in the open. That is not my style. That is the dead last's style."

"Fine," Naruto said. He quickly ran a few paces away from Sasuke before jumping into the clearing where Kakashi stood. "You may have escaped my wrath from before, but now you're going to get it!" he yelled. He quickly made about twenty Narutos and sent them all to attack Kakashi. Kakashi kept continuing to read his perverted little book and defended himself against the Narutos with barely looking up. They attacked him sloppily. Kakashi was going to have to teach this kid a lot.

For a second though, Kakashi wondered why Naruto would have known the start of the Rasengan, and yet he attacked so messily. He had to be hiding something.

Before that thought could turn into anything else, Kakashi felt someone coming in from his left up top. He turned around and was just barely able to dodge Sasuke coming in to tackle him. then he felt something tackle him from behind. He fell to the ground with someone on top of him. Luckily though, the body above him was light, and before that somebody had been able to grab the bells, Kakashi was already out of their grip. He looked back to see that it had been Sasuke who had tackled him. The first Sasuke must have been another Naruto clone that had been disguised as Sasuke to really distract him.

"Darn it!" Naruto yelled. "I thought that would work for sure!" He quickly dispelled the other Narutos.

Just then, the alarm for the testing ending sounded off. Naruto groaned, "Now I'm not going to get any food!"

All three of them walked back to the original meeting place with the three logs to see that Sakura was already standing there, waiting for them. She looked at Kakashi and saw that the bells were still hanging from his waist.

"So we lost?" She asked sadly. "Now we're not going to become genin!"

"Actually," Kakashi said. "I've decided to pass all three of you."

"What! Really!" Naruto asked, feigning his happiness and surprisement.

"Yes. You and Sasuke showed great teamwork, which was what I was looking for," Kakashi said. "My friend once told me, 'Ninja who disobey the rules are scum but ninja who disregard their friends are even lower then scum.' Although next time, I would hope that you guys include Sakura in your teamwork."

"Yes!" Naruto said, jumping up and pumping his fist in the air. "I'm genin now! One step closer to being hokage!" _And one step closer to saving Sasuke! _Naruto cheered in his own mind. _But now I'm going to have to train about ten times harder then I ever have. Good thing I have shadow clones._

"Ok, so you guys can now eat!" Kakashi announced, smiling when he saw his students' looks of pure happiness. "And then you can all head home, except Naruto. I need to have a word with you."

"Huh? Why?" Naruto asked. "Is it because I did something really awesome!"

"You'll see," Kakashi said.

All of team 7 went over to the three logs standing straight up, and ate their lunch, well now it was dinner. They ate quickly, shoveling into their mouths, except Sasuke. He refused to show how hungry he was so he ate slowly. When they were done, Sasuke left and Sakura followed him asking, "Can we hang out?"

Naruto went over to Kakashi who had been sitting under a tree and watching them eat. "What do you want?" Naruto asked. He hoped that Kakashi would do this quickly beacuse he was still starving. _Time Traveling sure does make you hungry._

Kakashi stood up, towering over Naruto. "Tell me. How is it that you knew the beginnings of the Rasengan? That is a very high ranking ninjustu."

Naruto gulped. _Darn, I wasn't thinking when I starting using that. _"I have no idea what you are talking about," he said in a happy tone.

"Yes you do," Kakashi growled. "When you first came to attack me. You started the Rasengan and were surprised when it didn't show up."

Naruto put a hand to his chin in a thinking motion. "Hmm... Oh that! I was just trying to do weird things with my chakra, see if it would work and come up with something cool!"

Kakashi didn't buy it, but it was obvious that Naruto wasn't going to tell him the real reasons. "You shouldn't be doing weird things with your chakra, especially in the middle of a fight. You don't know what could happen." With that said, Kakashi poofed away, leaving Naruto all alone.

"Phew!" Naruto said, relaxing. _That was really close! I can't believe I almost did the Rasengan though. Was I not thinking? I'm going to have to be more careful. _Naruto started walking away, not towards the city but towards the forest, looking for a clearing deep inside that would be hard for anyone to find him. _Now, to start my real training!

* * *

_

**(The Future!)**

Sakura rapped on the hokage's office door with her left hand. Her other hand was tightly gripping onto Naruto's left wrist. Naruto was currently struggling to get out of her death grip.

"Sakura," he whined. "I'm fine! I don't have amnesia!" He paused for another round of trying to slip away. This only made Sakura tighten her grip on his wrist. His hand was already starting to turn purple from the blood draining out of it. "Sakura... You're going to break my wrist in two."

"Then stop struggling!" Sakura snapped at him. "If I knew you weren't going to run away, I'd loosen my grip!" Sakura was trying her hardest to not turn around and hit Naruto on the head, but it was hard, and she was shaking from the effort. Naruto took this shaking as a sign of anger.

He gulped and stopped struggling. Sakura's grip loosened, but only a little. It still felt a lot better.

Suddenly, the door was opened, revealing Shizune. "Sakura... Naruto? What are you guys doing here?"

"We need to talk to Tsunade-sama! It's urgent!" Sakura yelled in a frenzy.

Naruto looked at the person before him. She was about his _newly_ acquired height, with black hair and dark brown eyes. She was a holding a pig in her arms.

"Who's this?" Naruto asked. "And what's with the pig?"

Shizune looked at Naruto confused. "What do you mean by: 'Who's This'? And the pig is Tonton, you know that."

Sakura shook her head. "I think he has amnesia, which is why I need to see Tsunade-sama."

"For the millionth time, I don't have amnesia Sakura! I think I would've remembered if I got amnesia somehow." Naruto whined.

"Actually, you wouldn't remember because amnesia is all about forgetting!" Sakura growled.

"Yes, come right in," Shizune announced, and let Sakura drag Naruto into the office.

Tsunade was sitting at her office. She had one elbow on the desk and she was leaning her head onto that elbow, staring at some boring paperwork. She looked up when she felt Sakura and Naruto standing there. She looked up to see an agitated Sakura and a pouting Naruto.

"What is it Sakura?" she asked her student.

"Tsunade-sama," Sakura started formally. "I think Naruto here has amnesia." She gave a light tug on Naruto's arm as she said his name.

"Really?" she asked, standing up and going around the desk to stand by them.

"So, you're Tsunade," Naruto said, looking the hokage over. _She has a really huge chest._ He began to get uncomfortable under her intense gaze. "um... Nice to meet you?"

"Do you really not remember me?" Tsunade asked. "The fifth hokage?"

"Fifth hokage?" Naruto asked. "Where's the third? What happened to him?"

"He's dead," Tsunade said plainly. "Tell me, what is the last thing you remember?"

Naruto sighed. "I already told Sakura this! The last thing I remember is getting our genin teams and going home to sleep! This joke isn't funny!"

Tsunade shook his head. "Unless _he's _the one playing the joke, he has amnesia. I really don't know what to do with him now." Tsunade sighed, thinking it over. "For now, just go home. Sakura, go with him, and talk to him. Tell him things that happened in his past, maybe something will trigger his memory back. Then later we can get Ibiki to look at him."

"I'm right here!" Naruto yelled. He hated people who just talked around him, pretending like he wasn't there.

"I'll also come in and check up on him, in a little," Tsunade added, ignoring Naruto's outburst. "Now you can go." She waved them out of her office.

Sakura had to, again, drag Naruto back to his apartment.

**End of Chapter 5!

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**

**A/N: **Sorry guys, no Sasuke this chapter. I'll have him next chapter though. ^^ Please Review.

Also, I wrote this short little one-shot fic that is called Wilting Roses. Its Naruto talking about releasing Kyuubi. You guys should check it out and review on that one as well. Please?

Thankyou for anyone who is still reading this. ^^


	6. Chapter 6

**This Whole Thing Is A Mess**

**Disclaimer: **hmm... if I owned them... the characters would be all wacked up... does that convince ya'll?

**A/N: **Sorry for the long wait for this chapter... This is usually around the point in my stories where I get discouraged and have writers block and don't want to continue my stories. D: But I WILL finish this... eventually. I have this whole great ending all planned out and I really want to write it... I just don't know how to get there... *sobs*

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**Chapter 6!**

**(The future!)**

"I'm telling you Sakura-chan!" Naruto whined. "I don't have amnesia."

He was sitting on top of his bed, leaning his back on the wall. His room wasn't really that messy. Naruto had asked Sakura if they had cleaned it for him, but she had only answered by saying that he had forgotten about growing up and had forgotten about getting more cleaner. Naruto had scoffed and had said that that was impossible, there was no way for him to be organized and clean. The thought of him being that way disgusted him.

Now, Naruto was still staring at his room mesmerized. It still amazed him how little dirty clothes were scattered around and how few empty ramen cups there were. Most of the small mess, were random scrolls that had to do with some boring jutsu that were probably useless. If he really had amnesia, he couldn't believe that his "older" self was like this! In fact, he was glad he had forgotten about everything. He couldn't imagine living like this. He was much more comfortable in his old messy room that had looked like some enemy ninja had decided to come in and play a joke and had ransacked the place.

"Naruto, even Tsunade-sama said you have amnesia! Just accept it already and try to believe me when I'm telling you stuff about your past!" Sakura screamed. She was sitting in a chair next to Naruto's bed. She had been trying to tell Naruto about everything that had happened after they had gotten their genin teams, to see if anything triggered Naruto's memory, but Naruto was being stubborn, as his usual younger self would be. He would rather be staring at his room than listening to her, and Sakura was on her last nerve!

"How can I believe you when you're lying?" Naruto retorted. He would usually jump on board to whatever Sakura said, but this was going to far! She had told him that Sasuke had left the village for Orochimaru, who was apparently a snake-bastard-guy. Even Sasuke wouldn't have gone that far. Right? Even just thinking about the possibility hurt a lot more than can be put into words. Naruto had secretly been growing fond of the quiet boy, wanting to approach him and become friends but he had covered it up by pretending to hate the guy. And now, after finally getting on the same team as him, a chance to get to know each other, Naruto had woken up to be told that he had left the village for some snake-bastard!

Sakura frowned at Naruto. She knew that he wasn't listening to her because she had told him about Sasuke leaving the village, but he was overreacting way to much. Damn, how was she ever going to tell the blond that Sasuke was probably dead right now? She really needed to get Naruto's dense mind less dense if she had any hope of getting him to recall his memories. There was no way she could tell Naruto about Sasuke now. With his current mind, he would go racing after Sasuke right away without a second's thought.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked cautiously, poking his pink-haired teammate on the shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Huh?" Sakura snapped back from her thoughts, looking up at Naruto. "Oh, I'm sorry, I got lost in my thoughts." She smiled at Naruto, who returned her smile with a big, cheesy one. "Um... where were we?" she asked, mainly to herself though. "Lets see, do you not even remembering learning sage jutsu and becoming the one of the best ninja in Konoha?"

Naruto shook his head, then nearly jumped up in joy. "I become the best ninja in Konoha?" he shouted. "That's so cool! I bet even Sasuke will be jealous of me! I'm so awesome!"

Sakura sighed, helplessly. This was going nowhere. But still, she had to continue until Tsunade came and could take Naruto to Ibiki. But that could be a really long time. "What about..." she continued.

Eventually, Tsunade was knocking on Naruto's door. Sakura was greatly relieved when she opened the door to see the hokage. She had just about killed Naruto by now, having growing sick of him awhile ago.

"Has Naruto remembered anything?" Tsunade asked her former student.

Sakura shook her head. "He's barely even listening to what I've been telling him. It's almost as if this _is _his younger self."

Tsunade sighed. "Do I really have to deal with this now?" she asked quietly to herself. "I have so many other things to worry about, such as Uchiha Madara and his next move, and Naruto chooses _now _to forget everything."

"He probably forgot because of Sasuke," Sakura whispered. "I've been wanting to forget about everything too..."

Tsunade coughed. "Well, lets get Naruto to Ibiki then! Maybe he'll be able to recover Naruto's memory."

Sakura nodded before going back to fetch Naruto. They reappeared a minute later.

Naruto was pouting. "Who's this Ibiki guy? Why do I have to go see him?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Because! Now lets go!" She started to drag him, but Naruto started to walk on his own and Sakura actually let go of him. Naruto figured that if Sakura had been able to come up with so much to tell him, that it was worth while to go see the man they wanted him to see. Who knows, maybe they were right... Maybe he _did_ have amnesia. _Ha! Yeah right! _Naruto laughed in his own head.

The three of them walked toward the hospital, cutting through the people in the streets. Some of the people bowed as their hokage passed them and others murmured 'Hokage-sama,' but what surprised Naruto the most was that some people even said 'hi,' to _him_. When had they stopped glaring at him? Naruto didn't even know how to react to the sudden friendliness he was receiving, he was so used to rebelling against them.

When they reached the hospital, Naruto gulped. He wasn't very fond of hospitals and whenever he had to go to one, it always sent shivers down his spine. They stepped in, and Naruto crinkled his nose at the 'hospital' smell. They walked through many halls, going around corners and past so many rooms that soon Naruto was lost. He hadn't even knew the hospital was this big. He just followed Sakura and Tsunade, not because he wanted to, but because by now, Naruto was sure he would never make it out alive if he didn't have someone to lead him out. With every step, Naruto's heart quickened. He wasn't sure who this Ibiki-guy was, but he was sure that he wasn't going to be nice.

Eventually, they reached their destination. All three of them walked through two large doors, and into a very dark room. Naruto looked around, weary. Of course the room had to be dark, this was making him fell even worse!

Then, a man walked forward, revealing himself to to three of them. Naruto knew that he shouldn't have come. This guy was already creepy! He had two scars going across his face and the top of his head was hidden under his headband.

"You guys are here," Ibiki commented. "Well, lets get started." He made a couple of hand-signs and Naruto stared as the room was illuminated by glowing green lights. He looked down at the floor and saw little symbols that were making the light. "Naruto, over here," Ibiki called, pointing to the middle of the room. There was a chair there.

Naruto gulped, deciding whether or not he should still try to bail. His decision was made when he still realized he had no clue on how to get out of the maze of hallways. He silently walked forward and sat down on the chair. "What are you guys going to do?" he asked meekly, then added, because meekness just wasn't his thing, "I already told you that I don't have amnesia!"

Ibiki sighed. "I'm going to make you pass out," he said. Then placed his hand on top of Naruto's hand. A moment later, Naruto's head went limp and he was snoring rather loudly. Ibiki focused on finding Naruto's lost memories. He had easier access to all the memories when his subject was asleep and not awake to try and guard there thoughts.

An hour later, Ibiki pulled away from Naruto, shaking his head confused. Tsunade and Sakura had been watching the whole time from the side of the room, and when they saw Ibiki was finished, they walked over.

"Well, what did you find?" Tsunade inquired.

Ibiki shook his head. This was the first time in his job where he was greatly confused about something. "It's weird..." he said honestly. "Its like the memories never even existed. Usually, with amnesia, the memories are there, just greatly faded and hard to find. Even if this was a jutsu cast by someone else, the memories would have just been guarded by many traps. But... his memories are completely gone. No trace. Not even the smallest, except what Sakura had told him. Its like he never even had them. He has no hope of ever getting them back."

"What!" Sakura screamed. "B-but... he _has _to remember? How else is he going to kill Madara?"

Tsunade sighed. "This is just great. What else could go wrong now?"

* * *

**(Past)**

Naruto finally found a spot to start his training. It wasn't a very large clearing, but it was big enough. He stood at the edge of it, stretching his arm across his chest as he prepared for training.

"Let's see," Naruto said to himself. "Chakra is half mental and half physical energy. I have enough mental energy, because my mind came back in time with me, so all I really need to do is to work on the physical strength of this body!" Naruto nodded to himself, proud of what he had declared. "And it won't hurt to use my chakra to help the limits of it expand even faster!"

Naruto recalled how he had learned the Rasen Shuriken when he was short of time. He had created many clones and sent them to work and whenever one died, everything they learned, came back to him, helping him push his knowledge on how to create the final product. This was much the same. He had to teach his body something and only had short time to do so. So, Naruto created a hundred clones. He would've created more, but again, the clearing wasn't that big and a hundred-and-one Naruto's was really pushing its limits.

Naruto sent twenty-five of those clones to run laps, twenty-five to run up and down trees with chakra, twenty-five to do push-ups and another twenty-five to do sit-ups. He himself, started practicing on throwing kunai at a tree, working on his accuracy. It wasn't as good as it was when he was older but it was definitely better than when he was originally 12. He only had ten kunai knives though, so after those, he would have to go and retrieve them, but some of them had missed the tree and were a hassle to find.

Naruto was training for only about 30 minutes before shadow clones started to disappear from being tired and out of chakra. He was in the middle of throwing another kunai as twenty of his clones disappeared at the same time and he was hit with a huge wave of exhaustion. He almost lost his balance as it came so suddenly and he wasn't expecting it. After that, the rest of the clones disappeared, leaving Naruto with all of their exhaustion, making him fall over, his legs unable to support him unable.

"Shit," he whispered, barely able to move his mouth. "I didn't think they'd disappear so fast! And I didn't think they would be this tired." He was lying on his back, with his legs and arms spread like a star. His chest was heaving up and down as he gasped for air. _Then again, I didn't have much chakra to give each of them, so of course they would disappear this quickly... Damn, I can't event tell if I gained any more chakra. I'm going to have to wait for it all to come back to me. Hopefully, that won't take long._

Naruto was unable to move for awhile, so while he was lying there, he decided to see if he could sense nature's chakra to make it into sage chakra. He knew that even if he found it, he wouldn't be able to use it. He would need a lot more chakra before he would be able to balance sage chakra enough to not become a frog. But looking for it, wouldn't hurt.

He was only able to catch a glimpse of the chakra. After that, he was unable to locate it. Naruto started cursing in his head. _I can't do _anything _in this body! Kyuubi... you bastard. I should have learned a different time-traveling jutsu! One that would enable me to _keep _all my powers. How am I supposed to save Sasuke with this weak body? _

Slowly, Naruto's energy came back to him and he was able to sit up. He eased himself up and onto his feet and carefully to walk around, his legs still wobbling. He started to find the kunai knives he had thrown before his clones had disappeared. He only had to find three.

"Damn, I'm not going to be able to go through that again for awhile," Naruto sighed. He still only had, what he was guessing was 50% of his chakra, because he still didn't know how much his chakra had expanded if it had gotten any larger at all. "Hmmm... I guess I could go see Sasuke. Maybe if I get him to cheer up, I won't even have to fight Orochimaru or anyone!"

Naruto wasted no time after he reached that conclusion. He quickly hurried to his apartment to take a shower. He was smelling all sweaty and was pretty sure that even a garbage-loving animal would run from the smell of him, disgusted. As soon as he was done with his shower and getting dressed, he made his way to Sasuke's huge house.

Naruto had been here quite a lot when he was older, but he was still amazed at how big and empty the whole Uchiha district was. It was scary that Sasuke had to live here all by himself. Naruto was letting his mind wander about these things as he stood outside of Sasuke's house, having already knocked on the door.

The door slid open and Sasuke stepped out, looking at Naruto with his blank expression. "What do you want, dobe?" he asked.

Naruto scratched that back of his head, a little unsettled by Sasuke's blank face and monotone voice. "Umm... Well I was wondering if we could hang out?" Naruto smiled awkwardly.

"And why do you want to hang out with me?" Sasuke asked. "And why would I want to hang out with you?"

Naruto snarled. "Well, I thought we could go train or something! Training against you would make me stronger... and you, could well..." Naruto paused trying to think of a reason why Sasuke would want to train with him. "You could make our team better by helping me get stronger! Or if you want to be a bastard, you could make fun of me because I'm so much weaker than you." Originally, Naruto hadn't been planning to train, but seeing Sasuke now, made him realize that that was the only way to get him out of his house. And besides, Naruto was pretty sure that even with his chakra not completely restored, that he could handle Sasuke.

Sasuke's mouth twitched and inside, Naruto was cheering. _Ha! He's trying to hide a smile! I knew I could get through that huge layer of mask he always puts on! I'm so awesome! _

"Hnnn," Sasuke said, thinking. He had already decided his answer but he didn't need or want to sound eager to hang with he idiot. "Fine... But only because we are going to train."

Naruto grinned. "Yes! Lets go then!" he grabbed onto Sasuke's hand and started to drag the boy out but Sasuke struggled out of his grip.

"I need to get my ninja tools," he answered when Naruto gave him a confused look. "I'll be right back." Sasuke then went back into his house and reappeared a few minutes later.

"Took you long enough!" Naruto pouted. "Now lets go!" He again grabbed onto Sasuke and dragged him all the way to the training grounds. Sasuke let himself be pulled wondering what had gotten into Naruto. Why did the idiot want to train with him? Didn't Naruto hate him?

"You sure you're ready to fail?" Sasuke smirked when they came to a stop and Naruto had let go of his hand.

Naruto snarled. "I only brought you here so I could beat you!"

"Fat chance of that happening," Sasuke said, rolling his eyes.

Naruto tackled him then and the two boys starting wrestling calling it "training" but it was more just friendly play. They kept fighting, never doing anything to dangerous, while throwing insults to each other and pretending to hate each other.

At one point, Kakashi stumbled upon them and hid in a tree, watching. He could see right through their "rivalry" and he smiled at the sight. "Who knows?" he mumbled to himself. "Maybe teaching a genin team won't be so bad. They're really fun to watch, especially when you know that its all an act."

* * *

**(Future)**

Sasuke grunted as he put more and more chakra into the ropes binding his wrists and ankles together. So far, the ropes were sucking up all the chakra but he could feel the pressure building. Soon, there would be to much for them to hold and they would break.

Finally, the ropes reached their limit and they broke. Sasuke rotated his wrists and ankles before standing up. He quickly activated his sharigan and searched the room for other signs of chakra, afraid of their being a trap. He found none though, and so he started walking to what he assumed, was the exit of the cave he was in. His way was lighted by candles and because of his sharigan he was able to detect and avoid all the traps that Madara has set.

There weren't very many traps though, and the ones that were there, were weak and Sasuke didn't even have to break a sweat avoiding them. He knew what Madara could do, and these traps confused them. They made him think that there was going to be a huge trap somewhere up ahead that would make up for the lack of traps where he stood, but no big trap came, and Sasuke found himself staring out into the sun, squinting his eyes.

Sasuke looked back into the cave, shrugging. "Maybe Madara really is getting cocky..." he said. "Or... maybe he _wanted _me to escape." Sasuke thought about this for a little. "But why? What purpose would that serve for him? Anyway, it doesn't matter, I have to get back to Konoha to report this and every second I am standing here is another second Madara could appear."

With that said, Sasuke left the cave behind. He had no idea where he was, so his goal was to find a road and then a town and then finally ask for directions. Even as he found someone to ask for directions, he was still thinking that Madara must be planning something bigger than what he knew of. Why else would his traps be so little and so weak?

Shrugging those questions away, Sasuke ran towards Konoha. If he had known a space-time jutsu, he would have just transported himself there, but he didn't, so he had to run.

**End of chapter 6!

* * *

**

**A/N: **Finally, I finished it... I really hope that I'll be able to get the next chapter out by next week but I'm not sure. D=

Please review... it'll help me want to continue and write this...


	7. Chapter 7

**This Whole Thing is a Mess**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto... -.-

**A/N: **I'm really happy I've gotten this far in my story. =D Thanks to everyone has been reviewing/adding this to their fav. list/story alert list/ and even a community.(xDD) ^^ And again, I'm REALLY sorry for such the long wait, but hey, this is my longesst chapter yet so it sort of makes up for it(not really). D:

Anyway, I hope you guys like overboard endings because the ending I have planned is probably on the top of that list. I'll probably going to have to write a sequel because I think it would be huge waste of an idea if I didn't. xP

* * *

**Chapter 7**

**(Past)**

Naruto lay in bed, his whole body aching. He had just finished training with Sasuke and the sky outside was already dark. Naruto looked at the red numbers on his clock. It read 8:30 PM. The blonde sighed, trying to remember what time he had started training with Sasuke. He guessed around 6:30-ish so they had trained for about two hours.

Naruto was surprised. He thought that Sasuke would have grown tired within the first fifteen minutes of training with him. _I think everything just likes proving me wrong, _He thought to himself. _Then again, thats not always a bad thing. _Naruto silently laughed.

He groaned, sitting up on his bed, his muscles sreaming at him to stop moving. He was still fully garbed in his orange jumpsuit. He wondered breifly as to why he hadn't taken it off; he was about to die in it becasue of the heat and trapped sweat.

Naruto slowly stood to go take a shower. Maybe that would cool him and ease the pain out of his muscles a little.

Afterwards, Naruto climbed into bed and slept. It was only 9:00 PM but the blonde didn't want to miss training tomorrow and they were meeting at 7:00 on the bridge. He couldn't deny that he was a late-sleeper, especially when he was older.

That morning, Naruto awoke and immediatley started to focus on his chakra to see if it had gotten any bigger. It had but only by a sliver of a fraction, just enough to barely notice. Naruto sighed. It took awhile to build up chakra so why had he been hoping to gain all of his chakra back in one day of training?

The blonde got out of bed. It was thirty minutes before the scheduled time to meet at the bridge. On a normal occasion, Naruto would have waited for an hour or two, since he knew Kakashi wouldn't show up until around, well, maybe around 10:00, although, that would be pushing it, _alot, _but Naruto decided that he could take the few extra hours to hang with Sasuke. If Sasuke had already started to warm up to him last night with training who knew what a morning could do? _Alot_, decided Naruto.

The blonde ninja left his apartment ten minutes before seven, and walked at a comfortable pace towards the bridge. When he got there, Sasuke was already there and Sakura was already doing her daily routine which consisted of fawning after Sasuke. Naruto rolled his eyes at her antics as he stepped onto the bridge. He sure was glad that she had nearly stopped obsessing over Sasuke in the future.

Naruto suddenly paused in mid-step, a thought coming into his head. What if he stopped Sasuke from leaving Konoha and then Sakura never stopped doing what she was doing right now, and... and then Sasuke and Sakura finally fell in love and lived happily ever after?

Naruto felt jealousy started pricking at his heart as his breathing became irregular. The thought hurt him more than it should have. Naruto didn't care what Sasuke did as long as he stayed in Konoha. Naruto told himself this over and over, but he couldn't make himself believe it. It wasn't like he was gay, right? He just didn't like seeing someone make the raven-haired boy happy other than him. He didn't like seeing others laugh when he was sitiing on the sidelines. Years of being alone cause him to be that way.

_Either he goes away and has a crappy life or theres a chance he falls in love with Sakura... which do you want, Naruto? _He asked himself. This made him start to walk again, and his breathing became easier. The painful stabs of jealousy stayed though.

Naruto walked right up to his teammates and with a huge grin shouted, "Hey guys! Our first _real _day of training. Aren't you guys excited?"

Sakura turned towards Naruto, having just realized he was there. "Oh, hey Naruto. And yeah, I guess it is exciting," she said, while looked at Sasuke and thinking, _especially when I'm going to be training with Sasuke-kun. _Her inner self was yelling something about being the strongest ninja ever.

Sasuke had been watching Naruto since the moment the blonde had stepped into view and had even been silently wondering what was wrong with the dobe, although, he wasn't about to admit this. To answer Naruto's question, he just turned his head to the side while saying a plain, "Hn."

Naruto frowned at Sasuke and, wanting to rival his coolness, turned away fromt the raven and pouted.

Sakura glanced between the two, trying to pick up any unsaid language between them. Finding none, she gave up and latched herself to Sasuke's arm again. Sasuke tried to unlatch her but was unsuccesful. Naruto turned his head around slightly to see what was happening. It made him a little angry. Ok, a little more than a little angry cause currently, he wouldn't mind ripping Sakura's head off her shoulders. Man, how he hated the pink-haired girl when she was this age. He really couldn't wait to see her again when she was grown up and less annoying. He didn't see how his younger self had loved the girl when she was like this.

Naruto watched for a couple minutes before deciding to save Sasuke from his misery.

He walked over and stopped right next to them. "Sakura, its kind of obvoius that Sasuke is not enjoying what you are doing. I mean look at his face, its worse than usual! If you want him to fall in love with you, I'd suggest starting by not annoying him as much, although, thats going to be hard considering Sasuke is annoyed by pretty much anything, even the birds flying overhead, probably."

Sakura looked from Sasuke to Naruto before finally sighing and letting go of her death grip on Sasuke's arm. "For once, you're actually right about something, Naruto. Although, maybe you should listen to your own advice. If you want me to fall in love with you, maybe you should stop being so annoying."

Naruto barely managed to stop himself from lunging at her. _I'm not in love with you! _he screamed at her inside his head. _Maybe I used to be, but I'm not now! I love you like a friend, in the future... anyway. _

Sakura and Naruto continued to argue until Kakashi showed up. When their sensei did show up, crouching above them and his orange book in his hand, the two turned to shout at him.

"LATE!" they both screamed at him. Naruto silently cursed at himself for not talking to Sasuke. He had wasted the whole time arguing with Sakura!

Kakashi scratched the back of his head. "Well... I just happened to forget what time we were supposed to meet today."

"What type of sensei forgets what time he is going to meet his students?" Sakura asked, putting a hand on her hip.

Kakashi laughed nervously. "Well... with that aside, we'll start today's assignment. I have got a list of D ranking mission for us."

Naruto immideiatley perked up, feigning his interest. "Really? We're already going on missions! This is so awesome!" Inside, Naruto was rolling his eyes thinking about how boring to day was going to be. He hated D missions. Why couldn't they just actually go and train. That would be much more helpful, especially to Naruto who needed to gain all his skills back again.

"Yeah, and afterwards, we'll train," Kakashi said, peeking over the top of his book to look at his students. Honestly, he really wanted to watch them train as it might give him a clue as to how Naruto knew the beginnings of the Rasengan.

"Yeah!" Naruto shouted while jumping up and pumping his fist in the air. When he landed he asked, "So, what are we doing today?"

Kakshi pulled a small piece of paper from his backpocket. To the three genin it looked like it held nothing on it, but on Kakashi's side, there was a list. Kakashi studied the list, groaning on the inside about how boring these were going to be. At least he had his book.

"Hmm. looks like we can start off by cleaning the river below us," Kakashi announced.

Naruto's mouth dropped open. "What! Why can't we go off and fight some powerful ninjas or something so I can show off my super awesome skills!"

Sasuke scoffed, and Kakashi's one visible eye turned into an upside down U as he smiled. "I don't think you're ready for that quite yet, Naruto. You can't even fight off me and there's far worse than me out there."

Naruto pouted, even though he knew Kakashi spoke the truth. There were _way _more powerful guys out there, such as Madara, Pein and the rest of the now-living Akatsuki. A shiver ran down Naruto's spine as he thought this over again. Would he have to fight them again? It was bad enough to have to kill the Akatsuki once, but, to do it _again_? What if they came now to take advantage of his weakened state and captured him? There was no way he could fend them all off, even if he had all his powers back.

"Naruto?" Sakura's voice shook Naruto from his thoughts. "Are you alright?"

"Huh?" Naruto asked. "Uh... yeah, I'm fine. I was just spacing out about becoming the most powerful ninja to ever walk the earth." He gave them a smile to hide his doubts and worries, and Sakura nodded. _Naruto, they don't even know you went back in time, they're not coming after you_, he told himself but it was still unsettling.

"Well, you guys can get started!" Kakashi shouted. "The quicker you get done, the quicker we can move down the list and the quicker you can get to training."

"You're not going to help?" Sakura asked.

"I think spending my time cleaning a river would be a waste of my jounin skills," Kakashi answered matter-of-factly.

"Whatever, lets just get started," Naruto growled, making everyone looked at him shocked. He walked to the railing of the bridge and putting one hand on the cool metal, he jumped over and landed, a few yards down, on top of the water, a small splash making his pants get wet.

Sakura ran over to look down, and was totally surprised when she saw Naruto _standing _on the water. "Naruto? How are you standing on water?"

Naruto looked down at his feet and laughed nervously. He hadn't even realized that he had focused chakra at the bottom of his feet, it was just second nature to him now. He let the chakra go and sunk down to his waste in the water, the water soaking through his clothes. It didn't have much of a current but it was still pulling at him, making him sway. "I don't know, I just... did it, somehow," he offered.

Kakashi and Sasuke were both equally surprised. Naruto was supposed to be the dead-last and he was already standing on water? Kakashi looked down at the water and studied his student. He wondered briefly if he was some imposter, but that didn't explain the Rasengan. No one outside the village, and very few inside, knew that jutsu.

Kakashi jumped down onto the water as well, but stayed standing on top of it. "I don't believe that, Naruto," he said. For once, he didn't have his orange book in front of his face. "Tell us, how did you _really, _know how to walk on water?'

Naruto gulped and started to back away, not only to get further away from his scary sensei but to also get closer to the edge of the river so he wasn't so deep. His mind scrambled to find an answer. "I was out expirementing a while ago and suddenly, it just came to me. I'm not really sure _how _I do it, and I'm not very good at it yet."

Kakashi shook his head, still not buying it. "If that was so, then why did you do it without thinking?"

"Who said I wasn't thinking?" he laughed. "I mean, I have to think _sometimes_ and since I look like I never think, it means that I must think when I don't look like I'm thinking."

Everyone looked at him, even more confused then before, even Sasuke.

Kakashi sighed, giving up. "Well, I'm not sure I'm buying that. I'm going to have to tell the hokage about this though."

Naruto gulped. What if the hokage was smart enough to figure it out? Then he would send him back to the future before he had the chance to save Sasuke! _Naruto! _he shouted at himself. _You really need to stop with the 'what if's'. No one's going to find out and you'll save Sasuke and everyone will be happy!_

Kakashi looked up at Sasuke and Sakura. "Well, are you two going to come down and start picking up the river? This is about teamwork so don't think about making Naruto do all the work."

Both of them ran off the bridge and to the riverside.

Kakashi jumped back up onto the bridge, and sat on the railing with his feet dangling. His sole focus was on the really good and smutty part of his book as he read it for the third time. He didn't look at his students once as he sat their giggling to himself.

The three genin got straight to work. Naruto, wanting to finish this as soon as possible, made twenty-five clones to help.

"Isn't that cheating?" Sakura wondered.

Naruto shrugged. "Nah. Is there really _cheating _in the ninja world? If you win, you win, no matter how you won. Ninjas aren't worried about playing fair when it comes to their mission and killing to stay alive."

Sakura looked a little shocked about Naruto's words, especially when he mentioned killing to stay alive. Were they really going to have to do that? Suddenly, becoming a female ninja was less appealing.

Five minutes later, the river was all clean, not a piece of litter in sight. Naruto quickly dispelled his clones and then jumped up on the bridge and tapped Kakashi on the shoulder.

The gray-haired jounin had been been gigling and blushing and very nearly jumped under Naruto's touch, but he didn't. "What is it?" he inquired.

"We're done," Naruto told him.

"Already?" Kakashi asked. He looked down at the river and sure enough, it was spit-spot clean.

"Yeah, I may have used some shadow-clones to help," Naruto said, scratching the back of his head.

"This is supposed to be teamwork, if your clones do all the work, that defeats the purpose," Kakashi said.

"They didn't do _all _the work, just most of it. Besides, how is picking up trash a part of teamwork?" Naruto offered. Sasuke rolled his eyes at the blonde's answer.

"hmmm," Kakashi answered. "Anyway, next mission." He fished the paper out of his pocket again and studied it. "How about catching a cat?"

Naruto groaned. "Why are we wasting my skills on that? How many more do we have to do?"

"Only four, including that one," Kakashi smiled upon answering. "Now lets go catch us that cat!"

All three genin groaned, including Sasuke.

* * *

**(Future)**

Sasuke was half a mile from Konoha, still running towards the huge gates that he could now see. As he drew closer, he started seeing the ninja guarding the door, and even the two ANBU perched on top of the gates looking down. In less than a minute, he would arrive.

When he did, the ANBU jumped down immediatley and looked him over. Sasuke's clothes were torn and had dried blood on them. It was from his previous fight with Madara's army. The ANBU took a few minutes to make sure that Sasuke was not carrying anything that could harm the village and that this was the real Sasuke and not some imposter.

When they were done, one said, "Sasuke Uchiha, the Hokage would like to see you."

Sasuke was getting irritated with standing there, but he kept his face blank, like always. When they said he could go see the hokage, relief flooded him. Then the ANBU started walking, at a normal pace through the streets and Sasuke again, found himself annoyed. "Can we hurry? I have something urgent to tell Tsunade...sama," Sasuke added the 'sama' part a little late, but oh well, he didn't care.

The ANBU looked at him. "Very well." One of them grabbed onto Sasuke, making the Uchiha flinch, then performed a jutsu that had them appearing in the hokage's office a second later.

Tsunade was sitting in her office chair, looking deep in thought. Her head snapped up when she heard the loud 'poof' and at first she was angry that someone had invaded her office without her permission, but then she saw Sasuke standing there, looking as if he had been in a big fight a little while ago.

"Sasuke!" she stood, shouting happily. "Thank GOD your back!" She looked at the ANBU. "You may leave."

"But Tsunade-sama, what if Sasuke decides to betray us!" One of the ANBU asked.

"OUT!" Tsunade shouted, pointing towards the door. "I know for a fact that Sasuke will not betray us and on the off chance he does, I can take him. He is not in the condition to fight anways. It looks like he just ran a million miles!"

THe ANBU left without another word, leaving the two alone.

"Tsunade-sama, I have something urgent to tell you," Sasuke said politley. Even the urgent news wasn't enough for his pride to let him shout out what it was he needed to tell her.

"I have something to tell you to," Tsunade murmered, sitting back in her chair. She rested her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. "Regarding Naruto."

Sasuke's mouth was open, having been going to talk but deciding to stop. He closed it, wondering briefly if they already knew. "Naruto?"

"Yes," Tusnade nodded sullenly. "He has some form of amnesia, and he thinks he is twelve again. And the worse part is that he has no way of gaining his memory back. Maybe with you, he'll at least believe us."

Sasuke let out a breathe. That must mean that... "He doesn't have amnesia," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, but isn't some jutsu either. Ibiki would've picked up on that," Tsunade told him.

Sasuke shook his head. "It is a jutsu, but not the type your thinking of. Naruto traveled back in time, and I'm guessing that he switched places with his younger soul."

Tsunade looked at Sasuke with shock, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. "What? He went back in time? How do you know?"

"Madara told me. In fact, he told me his whole plan. I really don't know why he told me, but he did. He said he was going to use me as bait, but I escaped," Sasuke said.

"What is his plan?" Tsunade talked fast, her voice urgent.

Sasuke took a deep breathe before starting out slow, but his voice started going faster and faster as he spoke. "Madara sent Naruto back in time so that he would have none of his powers in the past and in the future. Then he will go back in time and grab Naruto and take him back into the future to take Kyuubi out of him and create the ten-tailed bijuu. He was originally planning to use me as bait."

Tsunade nodded, telling Sasuke that she had heard. "But why go back in time? Why not just snatch Naruto from this time period?"

"I think Madara is afraid of the other Naruto finding out and switching places again. He doesn't want there to be a single chance that Naruto could get his powers back."

Tsunade nodded again. "Damn Naruto for doing to this without even telling us! And Damn Madara as well," she muttered, then louder, "It looks like we'll have to send someone back in time to give him the message."

This is when Sasuke gulped, nervous. "Please Tsunade, let me go back in time." He was very nearly begging, which shocked the hokage. Sasuke didn't _beg_ for anything. This was obvoiusly something important to him, even more than killing his brother had been.

"Are you sure Sasuke?" she asked him. "You just have to tell him and get him to come back-or _forward, _should I say- to the future. Can you handle that?"

Sasuke nodded. "You just have to keep Naruto in this time-period alive, no matter what. I think Madara might send some Zetsu's to try and kill him."

Tsunade nodded. "We'll do everything in our power to keep him alive."

"You better do everything in your power and _more _to keep him alive. If you have to, call Garaa for help. This effects every country if Madara catches the last beast to create to the ten-tailed bijuu," Sasuke growled.

Tsunade, once again, nodded her head. "Do you know a time-travel jutsu?"

"No," Sasuke said simply, a slight blow hitting his pride.

"Hmmm," Tsunade thought. "I think there is one inside the Forbidden Scroll." She laughed and, trying to lighten the mood, said, "Good thing Naruto didn't find that one when he stole it all those years ago."

Sasuke made a little 'hn' sound, still staring blankley at Tsunade.

"Well, I guess I'll go find it and you can stay here, unless you need anything else?" Tsuande asked, although her question sounded more like, 'you better not need anything else.'

Sasuke shook his head at the last part.

"Good," Tsunade said. "I don't want people to know you returned. If they knew, they wouldn't let you go back in time. That and I don't want this whole situation getting out to the public. The ANBU and a few selected jounin will be the only ones I tell so that they can guard Naruto 24/7."

Sasuke nodded in understanding. Tsunade left and Sasuke waited, seemingly patient, but he was growing more and more anxoius. He needed to save Naruto, _now! _He started to pace around the room.

A few minutes later, Tsunade returned carrying a very large scroll awkwardly, through the doors. She plopped it onto her desk and immideatley started to scan through it. Sasuke came over to look at the scroll.

It was covered in nicely hand-written words. The title of each jutsu was larger and bolder than the rest of the words. Each jutsu was accompanied by a description of the jutsu, how to execute it and it even had pictures of the hand-signs of the jutsu.

They were about half way through the large scroll when they spotted the Time-travel jutsu. It didn't have a proper name, like the others, it was just named 'Time-Travel'. Reading the description, Sasuke found that only one person had tried it before and no one was sure what had happened. The Jutsu was said to supposedly send Sasuke back in time, staying in his _own _body, and if you reversed the handsigns, you would go into the future. It also said in big bold letters that this jutsu held huge risks.

Tsunade looked up at Sasuke. "Are you sure you want to do this, Sasuke? It's a huge risk and we don't know what would happen to you if it failed. Maybe I should get someone else to do it."

"No, I'll do it," Sasuke said, his voice and his words told her that he was 100% sure he wanted to do this. There was no way he was going to back out now.

"Ok. So lets go over the plan one more time," Tsunade said. "You go back in time, tell Naruto to preform another jutsu to switch places again with his younger soul and I'll do everything in my power and _more, _to make sure that the Naruto here, stays alive and out of harm's way. If anything goes wrong, and you can't go forward in time, then you'll have to get help from Kakashi and whoever else back then to help keep Naruto safe. We can't afford to mess up and let Naruto get captured."

Sasuke nodded. "I'm not going to mess up."

"If you're sure on that, you can do the jutsu," Tsunade told him.

Once again, Sasuke nodded and prepare to do the time-travel jutsu.

* * *

Uchiha Madara walked back into the cave where he had kept Sasuke. Walking far into it, he found the ropes that had tied Sasuke were loosely laying on the ground with Sasuke no where in sight. Madara quickly scanned the whole cave with his mind, searching for any trace of another person's chakra.

Sasuke's chakra was there, but it was faded meaning that it was old chakra that he had aready used. Uchiha Sasuke had escaped.

Madara let a small smile creep across his face beneath the mask. Perfect. His plan was falling into place. He performed a couple of handsigns and then, with a loud pop, he transported himslef to the same cave, only back in the past.

Now, all he had to do was wait. It wouldn't be long now.

**End of Chapter 7!**

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A/N:

Finally! This chapter is done! Please review and I'll try getting the next chapter out sooner than I did this one.


	8. Chapter 8

**This Whole Thing is a Mess**

**Disclaimer: **If there was a way(a free and easy way that is) to own Naruto, then I would take it, but since I don't think there is, I'll just have to settle for borrowing them for this story. So I don't own them... ok?(sniff sniff)

**A/N: **I'm SOOO happy! You know why? Becuase I got 7 reviews last chapter which is like 6 or 5 more reviews then I usually get. xD So I decided to write this chapter up before updating my other story!(sorry other story...) And I would've gotten this chapter out even sooner but my laptop had problems... so yeah... Anyway chapter 8!

* * *

**Chapter 8!**

**(Past)**

Team 7 stood at the edge of the training grounds, having finally finished all the boring D missions. Even Sasuke had a small smile on his lips, the joy of finishing all the easy D's overwhelming his usual stoic self, although, only by a little.

Naruto walked forward and fell onto his stomach on the grass. He spread out his arms and gently pulled the grass while saying, "Finally! I thought we'd die of boredom before ever making it here to train." He pretended to cry joyously while a happy smile covered his face from ear to ear. "I'm _sooooo _happy we made it! I don't think anything can ruin my happiness now!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes at Naruto. "Stop being so melodramatic, dobe."

Naruto sat up and glared at Sasuke. "Its official, Sasuke is a mood-ruiner," he pouted.

"Sasuke is right Naruto!" Sakura yelled, even though she was agreeing with Naruto. If there was a chance to help Sasuke with _anything, _she was going to jump for it. "The's D mission weren't_ that _bad. Stop overreacting!" She was about to walk over to punch the blonde when a hand on her shoulder stopped her. Sakura looked behind her to see that it was Kakashi's hand on her shoulder. She gave him a look that said, _'What!'_

Kakashi only shook his head slightly. "Lets stop fighting and get to training! I'd say we only have about an hour before we have to head home."

"We took that long witht the missions?" Sakura asked curoiusly. Kakashi nodded.

"It's because of that damn cat!" Naruto shouted. "That thing kept getting away. It was hella fast. _Way _faster than a cat should be."

"It wasn't because of the cat, Naruto. It was _you," _Sakura said through gritted teethm trying to not let her anger get the better of her. "If you hadn't been so stupid, we would've caught the cat a _long _time before we actually did."

"Shut up," Naruto said defiantley. He almost laughed at the memory. He really had been messing up alot then, but it had been to hard _not _to. He had even managed to have the cat scratch the perfect, almighty, and _untouchable _Sasuke. It had left a deep gash on the Uchiha's left cheek and it would probably turn into a scar that would take awhile before fading. Sakura, of course, had been furious that he had marred her Sasuke's perfect face, since it was his fault the cat had cratched Sasuke.

"Naruto," Kakashi said, making Naruto snap away from his previous thoughts.

"Wha?" he asked.

"Pay attention," Kakashi scolded in a light tone. "Anyway, I was saying that I'm going to teach you guys a new skill and that is Walking up trees with no hands."

"What! Thats possible!" Naruto asked.

"Yes. If you were able to stand on water, Naruto, then walking on trees is possible and even easier than that," Kakashi said. "Watch I'll demonstate."

Kakashi walked slowly over to the nearest tree and, true to his words, started, foot by foot, walking up the tree. All three genin stared, except Sasuke because he had already known about this; Itachi had alwyas been showing him his skills and walking up a tree had been one of them. Sasuke started to recall an exact memory of one of those times, but told himself to stop. It would make him depressed, remembering such things, and he couldn't afford that now when he was trying to get stronger.

Kakashi stopped when he reached the lowest branch, where he stood, hanging upside down. He watched as shock expressions ran across Naruto and Sakura's faces. He hadn't been planning to teach them this for awhile, but Naruto had made him decide different. If _Naruto, _the supposedly dead-last, could stand on water, then the rest of them should be ready to walk up trees.

"How do you do that?" Sakura called up to her sensei.

Kakashi jumped down right next to them. "Well, its a little like walking on easier but easier. You just focus chakra at the bottom of your feet and release steady amount to walk up. What takes time, though, is finding the extact portion of chakra to focus and release. To much and you'll be pushed away from the tree. To little, and you won't stick to the tree. Since you're beginners, you'll have to run up the tree."

Naruto nodded enthusiastically. "When can we start?"

"Right now," Kakashi answered him. "Here, take these kunai to mark where you got on the tree before falling off. Then you can try and beat your score." Kakashi handed them each a kunai. "Now find yourself a tree and start!"

Kakashi watched them as they all ran off to a tree and began their work. Sakura got it down on her first try, making it all the way to the first tree branch. This impressed Kakashi, he hadn't been expecting for the pink-haired girl to have that much chakra control. Who knew, maybe she would be the next Tsunade.

"Good job, Sakura. Now keep trying and try to get higher," he called to her. The girl smiled before jumping down to do it again.

Kakashi turned his attention to his other students. Sasuke was doing as well as Kakashi had hoped, making it almost to the height Sakura made it. Naruto, though, was a disappointment when Kakashi turned to him. He had barely made it up the tree at all.

_He has to be hiding something if he can stand on water and yet, he can't walk up a tree, which is whole lot easier, _Kakashi thought. He kept on thinking about that as he watched the blond improve ever so slightly each time he ran up the tree.

Naruto stopped, and panted, looking up at the tree and the marks he had made. They were low, _very_ low, on the tree. He sighed. As expected, he found that focusing chakra had come easily to him, since he had not forgotten _how _to do it, so why did pretending to be horrible at this have to be so hard? He been very careful to "accidentally" release to much chakra so that he would be pushed from the tree. He glanced at Kakashi, hoping that his sensei wasn't suspecting anything.

An hour later, and they had all barely improved from where they started.

"Ok guys!" Kakashi yelled. "Its time to stop for the day, unless you want to stay by yourself to train." He waited as his three students caught their breath and walked over to him. "You guys did good. This is really the first training session we had, so its no wonder you guys have gotten it completely under you belts yet, so don't be to mad." He directed the last part at Naruto, who was scowling and pouting.

"Well, you can guys can home," Kakashi said. Sakura and Sasuke nodded and walked away, with Sakura following Sasuke. Naruto stayed. "You want something, Naruto?"

"Nope! I'm just going to stay and train some more! I still got chakra and I want to get the tree walking down!" Naruto answered.

"Naruto, I don't think anyone can _master _it in just one day," Kakashi told him, then shrugged. "But if you want to stay, then stay. I'm going to be headed home, though."

Naruto grinned and nodded. Kakashi jumped away, but he didn't go home. Instead he made a very large circle to make it look like he left, and then came back to hide in the trees to watch Naruto. He needed to find out if the genin _was _hiding something. He crouched low in a tree that had alot of leaves to hide his presence. He watched as the small genin boy ran off further into the woods and silently followed.

Naruto looked around warily, trying to see if he had been followed. He couldn't tell though, and he cursed at his lacking ability of sensing chakra. He was just going to assume that he had not been followed.

Naruto took a deep breath before running at the largest tree in the forest that was nearby. The whole hour of having to pretend to fail, had really gotten him frustrated, because he actually had to _try _to fail. Right now, he needed to relieve himself of that feeling and the only way to do that was to run up the tree like he usually would.

Naruto's foot hit the tree and he continued up it. He ran all the way up the tree perfectly and stopped at the very tip. He let out a sigh of happiness.

Kakashi watched, a little surprised, as his student flawlessly ran up the tree. That must have meant that before had been all an act. He was about to go and confront Naruto when he decided better of it. He would keep watching to see if Naruto had anything else up his sleeves.

Naruto walked slowly down the tree, stretching his arms over his head as he did so. He yawned as he stepped onto grass. He felt better already, and so, he decided to just go home. He didn't really feel like training anymore tonight.

Kakashi followed his student all the way home stealthily. He watched as Naruto got ready for sleep and flopped onto his poorly made bed. He watched as the blond's snores got louder and louder as he fell asleep. He didn't leave though, because for all he knew, Naruto had been planning to wake up and do something that would give him a clue if he was an imposter or not.

Kakashi settled on a tree right outside his oblivous student's window, where he could watch the blonde sleep. He was prepared to stay there all night.

* * *

Sasuke appeared on the top of the hokage building, the cloud of smoke that engulfed him quickly being blown away revealing him to the darkness of the night. Sasuke nearly grinned at his luck, for if it had been daylight when he had appeared here, he surely would have been seen.

Sasuke looked down at his clothes and instantly wished that he had at least changed before coming back in time. If someone did happen to see him now, they could accuse him of doing something horrible that had made him fight for his life. In other words, he didn't look as innocent as he wished.

The Uchiha sighed and prepared to do a simple form of the transformation jutsu, aware that he didn't have much charka left after performing his huge time-travel stunt. Another cloud of smoke appeared and when it cleared, it revealed Sasuke in some sweats and a t-shirt that were both very easy to move around in. He couldn't afford to use this jutsu for long though, so he was going to find some new clothes.

With that in mind, Sasuke nimbly jumped down off the hokage building onto the ground, and walked off toward the Uchiha District. He knew that his younger self had not touched anything in any of the bedrooms since the massacre, and so it would be quite easy to get some of Itachi's old clothes.

He walked through the streets at a slow pace that to most would have been comfortable, but to him, it was making his feet ache with the need to run. He wanted to hurry to get the clothes so that he could find Naruto faster, but the last thing he needed was attention to be drawn to him. The few people walking the streets at night, walked by him without a second glance and even the rare ninja he passed didn't spare him another glance. It was clear that no one suspected him, yet.

He arrived at his old house a few minutes later. He found the window outside of Itachi's old bedroom and ducked inside. The whole room was filled in shadows, making it look gloomy. It looked as if the room had been prepared for someone but that person had never come to live there. Not a single thing lay out place but there was a thin layer of dust covering the room and a few cobwebs in the corners.

Sasuke crossed the room to the closet where he knew clothes hung inside. Sliding open the door, he saw Itachi's old shirts hanging with his pants neatly folded on shelves on the right of the closet. He didn't waste anytime picking out clothes, he just quickly grabbed a shirt, a black one that didn't have the Uchiha symbol on the back, that looked like it would fit and another pair of sweat pants.

He dispelled his current jutsu and quickly stripped out of his dirty clothes. He threw on the other clothes, made sure they were on straight, and then slung his sword over his back using some string he had found from other pants. Then he left.

Again, he had to walk through the streets at a painfully slow pace. All his current thoughts were focused on not running through the streets like a maniac. His patience was really put to test, which was rare.

Luckily, he knew where Naruto lived and he reached the blonde's apartment building five minutes after leaving the Uchiha District. He took the steps three at a time as he raced up to the second level where Naruto lived. Only a few seconds later, he arrived at his teammates door.

He didn't know if Naruto would be here, and if he was, if he would be awake given the current hour. He knocked on the door, but when no one came to answer, he was left with no other choice but to break in.

It was hard to see the lock in the dark, but Sasuke still managed to get the door open. He was met by a few traps Naruto had set out. The traps were sloppy though, and Sasuke easily stepped out of they way before getting hit by a kunai. The Uchiha made his away into the dark apartment and located Naruto's room.

A little light filtered in through the window coming from the moon. It cast weird shadows across the room and illuminated Naruto's sleeping form.

Sasuke let out a relieved sigh when he saw Naruto sleeping. Unless it was an imposter, which he highly doubted, his blonde teammate was safe. He crossed the room and gently shook Naruto. Naruto's pitch of snoring changed but he did not wake up. In fact, he didn't wake up until Sasuke was furiously shaking him back and forth.

Naruto groaned, his eyes opening a little, clouded with sleep, and looked up at Sasuke. He blinked his eyes a few times before abruptly sitting up in bed. He rubbed harshly at his eyes, blinked another few times and then squinted at Sasuke.

"This is a dream right?" he asked suddenly. "Or is this some genjutsu cast by someone? Or have I finally gone crazy enough to see things!" He paused for a second before adding, "It's probably the last! Oh god, I'm starting to see things! I'm finally going crazy. Why did this have to happen to me?" Naruto buried his face in his hands and pretended to sob.

Sasuke looked at Naruto confused. "I'm real."

The blonde sniffed and looked up at Sasuke. He flung his sheets off of him and got out of bed. He walked around Sasuke in circles and studied ever square inch of him closely. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes," Sasuke said.

Naruto took another minute to study the Uchiha before nodding his head. "Yes, you're real. Now, with that decided, lets start over!"

Naruto coughed a few times before looking at Sasuke with pure happiness on his face. He launched himself at the taller man, and jumped up to give Sasuke a big hug. He had his legs wrapped around the raven's waist and his arms wrapped around Sasuke's upper arms, holding them in place. He rubbed his head against Sasuke's shoulder like a cat would to his owner. "Sasuke," he purred. "I thought you were dead. Didn't Madara kill you?"

Sasuke sighed. "I can answer that as soon you let go of me," he growled through gritted teeth.

Naruto pouted, but still unlatched himself from Sasuke.

Sasuke took a moment to pat down his now ruffled clothes before saying, "Madara was going to kill me, but I escaped."

"Really!" Naruto asked. "Madara doesn't seem the type to let you escape."

"I know," Sasuke replied. "And maybe we'll find out why later, because it was also very easy to escape as if he wanted me to."

Naruto's eyebrows lowered in confusion. "If he wanted you to escape, why capture you in the first place?"

Sasuke shrugged. "I don't know. But while I was there, he told me his plan. So, would like to tell me exactly why you came back in time without telling anyone?" he asked in a very stern voice.

Naruto blushed and looked down at his feet to seemingly study them. He rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I… I came back in time to try and save you, Sasuke, from all your unhappiness and stuff. Um…. What's Madara's plan?"

Sasuke sighed and slightly shook his head. "I don't need your saving Naruto. And Madara's plan is to come and capture a defenseless and powerless you from this time period or possibly from the future."

"The future?" Naruto asked. "Wait… what happened to my older body?"

"You don't know?" Sasuke sighed. "Honestly, did you not research the jutsu you were using at all?"

Naruto shook his head. "No, but Kyuubi told me it was the only time-travel jutsu around, and I just really wanted to save you. . .Why are you still in your older body?"

"I'm in my older body because Kyuubi lied to you. I found a different time-travel jutsu," Sasuke put simply. "Why would you even listen to Kyuubi?"

"Cause, if I searched for a different jutsu, I would have been caught and then I wouldn't have been able to go back in time to save you. So, tell me, what happened to my older body?"

"When you traveled back in time, your younger soul went forward to take your place. I'm guessing that he now has all you powers but doesn't know how to use them." Sasuke took a deep breath before continuing. "But that doesn't matter now. I came back in time to tell you that you have to go forward in time again."

Naruto laughed nervously. "Yeah, about that. I don't have enough charka to perform it, yet. Soooo . . . I'm kind of stuck here."

Sasuke took a deep breathe. "If you knew you wouldn't have enough charka to go back, why did you still go back in time?"

"I didn't know that I wouldn't have my powers, though," Naruto argued. "Kyuubi never told me about that part."

"Again, lets just move on," Sasuke said. "I had a feeling this was going to happen, so luckily, we have a backup plan."

Naruto cocked his head to one side. "Backup plan?"

Sasuke nodded. "Since we can't afford to have caught by Uchiha Madara, then we're just going to have to hide you out in the mountains with a lot of ninja guards."

Naruto nodded. "So where do we start?"

"We start by telling the current hokage about our predicament and hopefully he'll help us," Sasuke said.

Suddenly, there was a loud 'pop' noise and then Kakashi was standing right next to Sasuke.

"I knew something was up with you, Naruto," Kakashi said.

"K-kakashi!" Naruto yelped in surprise. "How much did you hear?"

"Everything."

"Dammit," Naruto muttered. "Curse my ability to not be able to sense others charkas now! I really wish I still hade sage mode."

Kakashi chuckled. "I am really interested as to what powers you had in the future, but that's beside the point right now. So I guess we should go tell the hokage now, shouldn't we?"

Sasuke nodded. "Yes, we should."

* * *

**(Future)**

Kyuubi was sitting in his cage like he did every other day, since it wasn't like he could do very much else. He had his eyes closed though, and he was currently sending his subconscious out to search for something, or rather, search to see if that something was gone.

A few minutes later, Kyuubi's mind returned to himself. He grinned evilly for that something was in fact, gone. Sasuke's charka no longer existed, which meant that the

Uchiha had either died, or time-traveled.

This is what Kyuubi had been waiting for before making his plan become reality. With Sasuke out of the way, it would be quite easy for him to make this work.

He closed his eyes again, but this time, he was only calling for Naruto's subconscious to come here, to his cage.

It wasn't long for Naruto's twelve year old self(he's still twelve in his mind) to appear him. He watched as Naruto looked around at the unusual settings. This place wasn't like his old cage, where it had walls and water dripping, giving it an uneasy and creepy feeling. No, this place was completely dark. The only things visible were the bars to the cage, Kyuubi and Naruto, all being lighted from an unknown source.

"What do you want?" Naruto asked harshly.

Kyuubi tried his best at putting an innocent face on. It was a very scary attempt. "Well, I was just thinking that everyone in Konoha have been making you mad recently, haven't they?"

Naruto turned his head to the side in denial. "What's it to you?"

Kyuubi grinned inwardly, this was going to be easier than he had thought. "Nothing really. It just sort of aggravates me when I see them talking over you, deciding what to do to you, not believing you when you say you don't have amnesia and you don't do anything about it. Does it not bother you at all? All these years people have been shunning you, looking down upon you, wishing you didn't exist."

"S-shut-up!" Naruto screamed.

Kyuubi could feel the anger vibrating off of Naruto. He could feel the seal becoming looser and looser. It wouldn't be long now.

"And look, they've finally decided to just lock you up into your room with a guard. How thoughtful of them. Seems like they never did and they never will care," Kyuubi laughed.

Naruto now had his fists clenched and tears were steaming down his face. He knew that all the words Kyuubi had told him were true, he had just been refusing to face them until now.

How dare the bastards of Konoha do this to him! Why did they all hate him so? It wasn't his fault Kyuubi had been sealed inside of him.

His anger was boiling out of him now. He wanted, he _needed, _to get revenge for all the painful years he had to live through.

Kyuubi laughed in evil joy as he felt the seal loosening even more.

OOOOOOOOOO

Sakura was calmly reading a book inside of Naruto's apartment keeping watch over the blonde when it happened. She could feel the sudden evil chakra as it filled the room. Snapping her head up away from her book, she looked over at Naruto.

Sure enough, there was a deep red chakra bubbling out of the boy, who was lying on his bed, asleep.

Jumping up from her chair, and knocking it over, she rushed to Naruto's side. She didn't hesitate before creating a few handsigns, making her hands glow green, and then slamming her hands down onto Naruto's chest. The jutsu she preformed was a lot like the Hyuuga's. It would stop Naruto's chakra flow for now, but it wouldn't be long before Kyuubi's chakra build up to much and come crashing through her jutsu.

Sakura held one of her hands down on Naruto's chest, focusing almost all of her thoughts on continuing the jutsu, while the other hand she made a simple clone with. She had to notify Tsunade right away.

The clone took off running, faster than Sakura had ever managed. It jumped from rooftop to rooftop, heading toward the hokage building. When it got there, she ran past the guards so fast, that they were unable to stop her.

She didn't even consider the fact that Tsunade might be with important people as she pushed open the doors to the office.

The room was filled with jounin and anbu, leaving barely enough room to breathe. Tsunade was standing behind her desk yelling out orders. When she heard the door open, she snapped her head to look over, fury written very clearly on her face.

"Sakura! I'm in a very important meeting!" Tsunade shouted. "What do you need?"

"It's about Naruto," the clone panted.

Tsunade's face paled. "What?"

"K-kyuubi is taking over his body," she said.

**End of Chapter 8!**

**A/N: **hope you enjoyed it! I'll try to get the next chapter out sooner. (I'd really love to have 7 reviews again!)


	9. Chapter 9

**This Whole Thing is a Mess**

**Disclaimer: **I still don't and I never will own Naruto (unless my evil plan to rule the world works... then I will I own EVERYTHING)

**IMPORTANT: **So… I've been having some computer problems and such, and well my laptop totally quit on me, so I'm having to use my family's REALLY old laptop to be here and write this, but I'm afraid that this laptop will quit on me to. D: If that happens, then I probably won't be able to finish writing this story… But hopefully, this laptop will stay working!

**Author Notes: **Happy new Year you guys… And guess what? I'm finally 14. ^^

Again, sorry for taking so long but this laptop has anger problems or something… I mean once it had this HUGE virus that didn't allow me to do anything and then it just disappeared somehow. (luckily) That's the reason I'm afraid this laptop will quit on me. D: Anway, chapter 9!

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**Chapter 9**

**(future)**

"Kyuubi is taking over Naruto's body!" Sakura's clone shouted.

Every head in the office turned to look at her, some faces blank, some unbelieving, some accusing and some other expressions that would take to long to describe. In other words, they didn't know if they should believe her or not. After all, she was only chuunin but she was also the student of Tsunade-sama so what good would it do her to lie?

Sakura's clone looked around the room. It was the first time she noticed how many other ninjas were there, and she felt a little embarrassed. Maybe she should have told Tsunade more privately. Even with the weird feeling gnawing at her stomach, she stood her ground, knowing that if she backed down now, they may not believe her and that was something she could not afford happening. She needed Tsunade back in Naruto's apartment _now._

"Is this the truth?" Tsunade's voice was barely audible. She was trying to hide her fear, the fear that had finally blossomed after being a seed within her since this catastrophe had just started. She knew the moment Sasuke had been captured by Madara that nothing good was to come, but she had not expected this.

Sakura's clone nodded quickly. "Yes!" she spoke in a rush, the panic clear in her green eyes. "This is a clone. My real self is trying to hold back the charka, but it won't be much longer before the nine-tails charka becomes too much for her."

Tsunade took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to put her commanding face back on. When her eyes were reopened, they held a determined glint. "Then we best be going," she said, before turning her attention back to the crowd gathered in her office and shouting to them, "Yamato, meet us in 'that'room and set up the proper seals. Anyone else who is an expert at holding together seals, go with him."

Yamato nodded, understanding exactly what she meant by 'that' room. He jumped out of the window, followed by another five ninjas including some anbu.

"Now for the rest of you," Tsunade shouted. "Orders stay the same. Now go!"

The ninjas scattered out of the room, some poofing away with white clouds while others jumped out the window. In five seconds flat, the room was empty save Tsunade, Sakura's clone, and Kakashi.

Tsunade barely glanced at Kakashi before nodding to him, giving him the okay to go see Naruto with them.

"Sakura, we'll just poof over to Naruto's apartment so return to yourself," Tsunade ordered.

The clone nodded and a second later, it was gone.

Tsunade and Kakashi both made quick hand signs and then they too were gone, leaving the room completely empty.

The two of them appeared in Naruto's kitchen and immediately, they felt the immense amount of charka in the other room.

They rushed into Naruto's bedroom. Naruto was lying on the bed, his face contorted in pain as the nine-tails charka fought to break free from him. Sakura was bending over him, her glowing hands on his chest. Her face was also crunched up in pain at the amount and force of her charka she had to put through her hands.

Orange charka was just beginning to seep past Naruto, surrounding him.

Tsunade and Kakashi both paused, horror settling in their stomachs as they saw it was really happening.

"Sakura, let me take over," Tsunade said loud and clear, laying a gentle hand on Sakura's shoulder.

Sakura jumped at the touch. She had been focusing all of her attention on her jutsu so she had not been able to sense them come in. Sakura looked into Tsunade's eyes that were filled with a motherly comfort that said everything would be okay. Sakura let herself drown in those eyes as the fatigue she was feeling finally came to the surface. Her knees started to wobble, and tears started to show in her eyes. Her hands were shaking as she slowly let her jutsu stop and returned them to her side. Her tears were blurring the world around her. She could feel herself going to collapse, and when her knees buckled, she felt two firm arms wrap around her, holding her up.

Sakura looked up into the eye of Kakashi. His one visible eye wasn't as comforting as Tsunade's but it still made her feel safe and warm. She buried her head into his chest and let her tears finally spill over the edge, streaking down her cheeks and then dropping off. Her tears were fueled by her worry for Naruto. She felt like she had failed him.

Kakashi quietly comforted her, patting her on the back and whispering that everything was going to be okay. It hurt so much to see his student so broken like this.

Tsunade let Kakashi handle Sakura as she turned every part of her attention on Naruto. Without Sakura there to hold the charka back, it was quickly building up, the first tail almost completed. She made a couple of hand signs and when her hands glowed green she slapped them down onto Naruto's chest.

The process of the orange charka stopped, lingering between pushing past the new defenses and receding back into Naruto.

Tsunade held her hands down for a count of five seconds and then put her hands back at her sides. The jutsu she had just used was different than the one Sakura had been using. It was more advanced and it would hold out the jutsu for a little time, depending on the force pushing against it, without requiring for the user to keep spilling charka into it.

Tsunade guessed that it would hold out for about three minutes. On a normal occasion, it could have lasted for hours, but the Kyuubi's charka was just too much for that. Tsunade could only hope that Yamato would have already set up the room.

The hokage picked Naruto up bridal-style, his head and legs hanging limply over her arms. She winced as the orange charka burned her arms. She briefly wondered where he was in his mind, and how exactly Kyuubi had started taking over. Tsunade bent her head down to whisper in his ear, "Fight it Naruto. I know you can. I know you're strong enough to fight Kyuubi back down."

She straightened back up. "Kakashi, take care of Sakura. I'll be taking Naruto to a safe place now." A second later, she and Naruto were gone, leaving behind a white cloud of smoke.

Tsunade reappeared, still carrying Naruto, in a dark room. The only light came from small glowing symbols that covered the floor and parts of the walls as well. The glowing wasn't very bright and Tsunade could just barely make out the same ninja that had left her room with  
Yamato. They were each standing at an ending of a line of symbols.

"Is it ready?" Tsunade inquired.

"Yes," Yamato replied.

Tsunade briskly walked to the middle of the symbols and laid Naruto down with his head facing towards Yamato. She could see her jutsu starting to fail as Naruto's chakra started expanding again. She jumped away from the middle and then yelled, "Activate it Yamato!"

A second later, the symbols were glowing more brightly, illuminating even the dark corners of the room. Wood started to sprout from the ground, circling around Naruto wrists ankles and stomach to lock them all to the ground. More wood stood next to Naruto as if waiting to pounce if the other wood started to fail.

The orange chakra didn't completely stop though, and the first tail was becoming complete. As it did, more wood wrapped around it.

"Everyone else, feed your chakra into the symbols, Yamato alone isn't strong enough," Tsunade shouted.

The ninja did as they were told, crouching down and putting their hands onto the symbols. The symbols started to glow even brighter as more chakra was fed to them. The nine-tails chakra seemingly stopped, but Tsunade knew that it was still growing; it was just so small that it was impossible to tell.

Once before, Yamato would have been able to do all this by himself. But after Naruto had taken control of Kyuubi's power, it had become different. Naruto and Yamato had both explained it to Tsunade before.

They had told her that since Kyuubi's power was in a different place than the fox was the new seal was much weaker, having no need to be as strong, making it harder to support if need be. Technically, it should be impossible for Kyuubi to take over because Naruto had defeated his 'dark side' which was what Kyuubi fed off of when taking over.

But if somehow Kyuubi _did _start to take over, the seal would become even weaker and the kitsune's power would slowly return to him. As that power came back to him, the seal would start collapsing on itself because it was not made to hold all that power. The seal would start leaking the power out and into Naruto, whether he wanted it or not. If Naruto had the slightest bit of his 'dark side' in himself or was angry, than the chakra would be impure and would make him transform into the beast. Because of all this, it was too difficult for Yamato to hold the whole seal together alone.

That was why Tsunade had put this room together. She had had Yamato build this seals around the room so that others could give their chakra to it and it would support Yamato's jutsu. She had built this place a couple miles from Konoha, so that if the nine-tails did escape, they could hopefully stop its rampage before it got to the village. If she had to, she planned on killing Naruto if it looked like the nine-tails was going to get out, even if Sasuke had told her to keep alive and safe.

Unfortunately, she wouldn't know exactly when Kyuubi was going to officially take over Naruto's body. The seal was like a ticking bomb, even though some chakra would leak out into Naruto, Kyuubi would keep most of it. That meant when Kyuubi had all his chakra, he could destroy the seal and then Naruto would suddenly be Kyuubi with almost no in between. And they wouldn't be able to tell when Kyuubi had all his chakra.

Tsunade predicted they had about a week before Kyuubi fully took over. She hoped that the other Naruto would return before then. She hoped that Sasuke was having no problems getting to him.

* * *

Naruto knelt on his knees, his hands clutching onto his yellow hair. The anger building in his stomach hurt. He felt like he couldn't breath and each breath he managed to take in was a gasp for air that barely filled his lungs.

He wished he could get rid of this anger or at least find something to unleash it on. Random images of people kept flashing into his mind, fueling his anger even more. He remembered every hateful stare, every person who ignored him, everyone who thought he was a burden to have in the village and all those things from his childhood that had made him more alone than he should've been. They all appeared before him, and although he knew it was wrong, he couldn't help but let his fury rise.

There was something more than just his anger inside of him though, something that also screamed for release. It was some sort of power that he could feel pouring into him from Kyuubi's cage. He could feel it feeding off his anger, but he couldn't stop it, no matter how much he wanted to.

It was all building up inside of him and he saw only one way out of it other than just exploding from pressure. He started aiming for that way and just when he thought he could finally have release from it all, there was something there, something blocking his way. He screamed at the unseen force and started relentlessly pounding against it in hopes to make it go away. But the force stayed.

Naruto started to grab at more of the power that was leaking from the cage at a steady pace. He shoved it all at the hidden force and snarled at the thing. It took awhile but finally, the force started inching backwards only to stop again.

Naruto's face became contorted in anger as he again started to push at the thing. He needed to let all that he was feeling out and in order to do that, he needed this fucking thing in his way gone.

* * *

Kakashi stood before the hokage's office doors. Behind him stood an older version of Sasuke and a normal _looking _aged Naruto. Two guards blocked their way into the office.

"Kakashi-san, I understand that you have very important news for the Third," one of the guards spoke. "But I can't just let that stranger into the office. I know you say we can trust him, but I can't go off of your word. He's an unknown ninja and we don't know his ninja level and it's just to much of a risk to let him through."

Naruto started grumbling and pacing around, obviously trying to hold in anger. They had asked the guards nicely, they had _begged _the guards to let them through but they just wouldn't! Finally, Naruto snapped. "Just let us through that damn door! If you don't, the whole village could be in danger! You wouldn't want to be responsible for the downfall of the ninja."

The ninja guard snarled. "Kakashi, tell your student to be quiet. If you had news that could prevent the downfall of the village, why'd you bring him, a genin. And why would you want a stranger to hear the news? Couldn't he easily betray us?"

Kakashi sighed. "Just let us through. If only just me and Naruto. This is urgent news."

The ninja guards looked at each other. "Fine, you two can go in, but he has to stay out here," one said while pointing at Sasuke.

"What!" Naruto growled. "But Sas— I mean this guy knows most of what we have to tell the Hokage. He has to come in!"

The ninja guard rolled his eyes, not catching onto Naruto's slip of the tongue. "Why would you listen to what a stranger told you?"

"Whatever, Naruto," Kakashi growled. "Lets just go. Maybe we can get the hokage to let him in himself."

"Fine," Naruto grumbled.

The guards opened the door and the one who hadn't yet spoken poked his head in to call out to the hokage. "Sir, Kakashi-san and his student, Naruto, are here to give you some important news."

"Send them in," came the reply.

The two guards stepped aside and allowed Kakashi and Naruto to step through the doors. Sasuke stayed outside, a scowl upon his face.

The hokage was sitting at his desk smiling as the two ninja came into his office. His face was old and wrinkly but very friendly and comforting. He was dressed in his usual hokage robes.

"Kakashi-san. Naruto-kun!" he greeted happily as the two guards closed the doors. "What do you have to tell me?"

"Are these walls sound-proof?" Kakashi asked.

The hokage nodded. "That, and they have chakra in them to prevent any jutsu from being used to listen in."

"Good," Kakashi said. He turned to look at Naruto who gave him a sheepish smile. "Why don't you go ahead and explain, Naruto."

Naruto sighed and turned back to the hokage. He started to rub the back of his head in an embarrassed motion. "Let's see… Where to start?" He paused and his eyes wandered to the top right of the room as he thought. "Well… basically," Naruto took a deep breath and started making hand motions. He spit the next part out quickly, "I'm from the future!"

With that off his chest Naruto took a relieved sigh.

The hokage didn't show any outer sign of surprise other than arching an eyebrow. "From the future?"

Naruto laughed nervously. "Well… yeah. I know it sounds crazy but its true! Haha… Why would I lie? What crazy person would lie to the hokage!" Naruto continued to ramble on and on but why he wasn't lying, his voice picking up speed and going up an octave. It was clear how nervous he was.

The hokage smiled at Naruto, amused. "Calm down, Naruto. I'm not sure if I believe you, but obviously, Kakashi-san is here to testify for you. What do you have to say Kakashi?"

"He's telling the truth," Kakashi announced. "He knew things he shouldn't have, such as how to walk on water, and even the beginnings of the Rasengan. And on top of that, Uchiha Sasuke has also come back in time. He's in his older body though, so the guards wouldn't let him in."

"An older Sasuke is outside?" the Third inquired.

Kakashi nodded.

"I suppose I should let him in," the hokage sighed. He stood and walked quickly to the door. Naruto didn't hear what he said as the Third opened the door but a second later, Sasuke was walking into the room.

Naruto smiled at Sasuke, relieved. The nervousness he had been feeling was washed away as he looked into Sasuke's dark eyes. The room felt more safe and warm now.

The Third Hokage sat back down at his desk while Sasuke made his way to stand next to Naruto.

"So, you're really an older Sasuke?" The hokage wondered out-loud. "What proof can you give me that you're both from the future, other than Kakashi's word?"

"Well, I can start the Rasengan," Naruto chirped. "I sort of don't have any of my powers anymore… but I can do the beginnings of some… hehe."

"Yes, but how do I know that Naruto will learn the Rasengan in the future?" the Third asked.

Naruto sighed and his shoulders hunched. "Well, what else could I do? Or maybe Sasuke can show you something that'll make you a hundred percent sure that we're not lying. But what?"

"I could just activate my Sharigan," Sasuke said. "Its not like there are many Uchihas left, and I'm definitely not Itachi."

The third seemed to think about this for a second. "Very well."

Sasuke closed his eyes for about one second before reopening them to reveal the blood red eyes of the Sharigan. Three specks of black circled the pupil.

Naruto shivered just by looking at the eyes. Those eyes were capable of so much and he knew. He had had to fight against them before and it was something he never wanted to do again but he knew he would have to up against them again and not only those but the Rinnegan as well.

Sasuke deactivated his eyes. "Believe us yet?"

The third nodded. "Yes, I believe. So tell me, what purpose did you guys have of coming back? And why is Naruto not in his older body like you, Sasuke?."

"Well, Naruto was stupid enough to go back in time by himself without telling anyone," Sasuke started. "And he used a jutsu that made him switch places with his younger soul. The reason I came back in time was because of Uchiha Madara's plan—"

"Uchiha Madara?" the Third growled. "Is he still alive?"

Sasuke nodded. "Very much alive. He's a huge problem in the future and he has a gang called the Akatsuki but most of them are killed in the future."

"Yes, I've heard of the Akatsuki from Jirayia, but I didn't know Uchiha Madara led them."

"He does," Sauske said matter-of-factly. "Madara is planning on capturing Naruto, who doesn't have any of his powers, to create the ten-tailed bijuu."

"What! The ten-tailed bijuu? I thought that was just a myth," the third said bewildered. He coughed, and then asked seriously, "Why don't you just travel forward in time?"

"Because Naruto doesn't have enough chakra to do so," Sasuke growled, glaring at Naruto. "Plus, even if we did, Madara would go after the younger soul of Naruto and we'd be to far away to stop it."

The Hokage nodded thoughtfully. "I see your dilemma. But how do you propose we stop Madara?"

"We'll have to take Naruto away from village and hide him from Madara somewhere, like in the mountains, with some elite ninja guards," Sasuke said. "Then we can help him train until he is strong enough to help in the defeat of the Akatsuki, or at least strong enough to destroy Madara and maybe Pein as well, from this time period."

"Pein?" the hokage asked, and Kakashi's face told Sasuke and Naruto that he had the same question.

"Pein is one of the pervy sa—I mean Jirayia-sensei's old students," Naruto jumped in, being tired, and a little jealous, of letting Sasuke do all the talking. "He has the Rinnegan and is really strong because he can control like six other people who have one really strong power each. I had to face him before, and I only stood a chance because I had Sage Mode."

"Rinnegan, huh?" Kakashi asked. "I thought that was another myth and you have sage mode in the future?"

"No, it's real," Naruto said. "And yes, I did have Sage Mode. I learned it after Pein killed Jirayia."

"Pein was able to kill Jirayia? Then he must be a powerful enemy," The hokage growled. "I suppose I should put together a squad that'll help guard you, Naruto. Kakashi, would like you to lead the group?"

"Sure," Kakashi replied. "But what about Sakura and younger Sasuke?"

"I can put them under a temporary teacher, but I think it would be best if you went with Naruto and Sasuke," The third answered.

Kakashi nodded.

"Then you are all released," the Third announced. "Get together everything you think you'll need. I'll get together some anbu and some jounin. Meet back here in an hour."

All three ninja nodded and then left the room to go and pack. In just an hour, they would be leaving the village.

**End of Chapter 9!

* * *

****Author Notes: **Finally… its finished. I hope I don't take as long to get chapter ten out…

**Pen-Name-Kitsune-chan: **I felt like I should reply to your review since it was so long and had some really good constructive criticism. You have some REALLY good points and tips… such as doing the whole Kyuubi taking over scene in Naruto's POV. I think I thought of that, but for some reason I didn't do it…. I sort of put some Naruto POV into this chapter so maybe that makes up for it a little…

You're right about the clothes thing to. I guess it never really dawned on me that Itachi left when he was 13. Maybe he was just a big teenager…?

And yeah, I know I'm going to fast for this story. That's one of things I really need to work on as a writer…. I also should work on whatever else you mentioned. But I'm glad that my flaws as a writer aren't too bad that it prevents you from enjoying the read. Anyway, thanks for the tips. ^^


	10. Chapter 10

**This Whole Thing Is a Mess**

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own him… (hmph)

**Author Notes: **Gosh... I'm so sorry it takes me so long to update, but I try. D: I've been redoing the ending in my mind and I've think I've worked one out that is way better than the one I had planned. it includes some more of Madara being manipulative but thats probably a given.

Thanks to everyone and anyone who is still reading this. I really do love you all. (:

* * *

**Chapter 10**

**(future)**

Sakura's crying had finally started to subside turning into little sniffles instead. Her head was still buried into Kakashi's strong chest and his arms still wrapped firmly around her, but at last, Sakura was able to get control of her tears. She could still fell them biting at the back of her eyes, threatening to again come loose which is why she still needed the support from Kakashi. He must've sensed that in her, that if he moved away she would break down again for he still comforted her.

Sakura moved slightly, readjusting her head so she could peek around the room, and for the first time, she realized they were no longer sitting on the floor in Naruto's bedroom. They were still in Naruto's apartment, just sitting on the couch in the living room next to the kitchen. Her green eyes wandered the room, wishing that it was torn apart to show the trouble that was going on. Instead, it made it seem like everything was perfect, that Naruto was fine and there was no reason for Sakura to be curled against her sensei still trying to stop her emotional outbursts.

She wished that was true. The truth was, she didn't even know where Tsunade had taken Naruto. For all she knew, Naruto could be dead at this very moment or Kyuubi had taken over and the village was now trying to defend itself while she lay here selfishly crying instead of helping. Oh god. She had failed him. Naruto had protected her so many times from trouble and the one time he needed her to do the same, she wasn't strong enough. She had tried. She had, but it seemed that she was never going to be strong enough for the blonde. She was useless.

The tears were coming back. Sakura bit her lip and closed her eyes tightly, refusing to let more sobs come out but it seemed her efforts were useless. More tears slipped out and when she choked on the air she took in it made her make that stupid sobbing sound. She hated herself, always crying instead of making anything better.

No, she had to stop thinking this way. It wasn't helping her crying issue get any better. She felt Kakashi's hand gently slide up and down her back in a calming matter and just like that hand, she tried to comfort her mind, to tell herself she wasn't useless and that she could do something for Naruto. The sobs once again stopped, and Sakura forced herself to open her eyes and push Kakashi away. She slid away from her sensei to curl up on the other end of the couch.

When the pink-haired ninja looked at Kakashi, his one eye made her defenses almost fall again. His eye was filled with such pity and worry that it made Sakura hate herself even more. She didn't want his pity; she needed to stand on her own for just once. She looked away from him, still struggling not to cry.

"Sakura?" Kakashi gently asked. "You okay?"

"I-I'm f-fine," Sakura said, her voice breaking. She knew her voice was betraying how she really felt, and she cursed it for it.

"Are you sure?" Kakashi's voice was just above a whisper as if he was afraid that if he spoke to loudly it would destroy the claim Sakura had over her body at the moment.

Sakura nodded, chewing her lip as she still refused to look back at Kakashi.

"I'm worried about Naruto to," Kakashi said suddenly but still softly. Sakura could feel him shift his body on the couch into a more comfortable position. "It may not be the best time to tell you, but I think you should know the truth to what's really going on with Naruto."

This surprised Sakura, and also made her a little mad that they had been keeping info about Naruto from her. _Her _Naruto. She kept quiet though, afraid that if she spoke now, she would indeed break down once again.

Kakashi continued, his voice still soft. "I actually only found out about this just recently. The meeting Tsunade had had us in was about this whole thing. But anyway," Kakashi took a deep breath. "Apparently, Naruto traveled back in time, his reasons unkown, but his younger soul came and took his place in his older body, which explains the whole 'amnesia' thing."

Kakashi took a long pause, looking at Sakura in worry, and figuring out a way to continue. "But now, Madara is planning to capture a powerless Naruto from the past so he can create the ten-tailed bijuu in the future—or _now_. And I wasn't supposed to tell you, or anyone for the matter, but Sasuke…. He came back to the village but has already traveled back in time so he can try to save Naruto and the rest of the village." Under his breath he added, "Probably to mainly save Naruto. He's never really liked our village."

Sakura missed a breath as this information dawned on her. Once again, her face contorted in the effort it took not to cry. This time it wasn't as much because she had failed Naruto but because she felt a little betrayed which made her feel more useless as she was now betrayal-worthy. She sniffled, thinking about what levels Naruto and Sasuke would go for each other. She knew she loved them both, but what rights did she have to claim that love when she wouldn't go through the same pain they did? She said she loved them and yet what did she do to prove it? Nothing. They probably didn't even love her back. If it was her in the same pickle Naruto was in, Sasuke wouldn't have gone back in time to save her. Naruto did say he loved her, but still, he probably had gone back in time to make Sasuke's life better and Sakura knew he wouldn't have done the same for her.

It hurt. It hurt so much to look upon the two people you loved most and to see them doing wonders for each other but not for her. It hurt not being able to prove to them, and to herself, that she did indeed love them. She was just a selfish little useless girl. What right did she have to take away that love from them, and claim it for herself, even though she didn't do anything for it?

A waterfall of tears finally came forth again from Sakura. It was just too much to hold back any longer.

Kakashi made an attempt to come closer and wrap his arms around his student but Sakura shook her head at him and held out a hand to tell him not to.

"Please, I just want to be alone for a little," Sakura whispered, her voice still breaking every word.

"Are you sure?" Kakashi asked. Sakura gave him a quick nod. "Do you want me to take you back to your house?"

Sakura shook her head at this. She wanted, _needed, _to stay here if only for the faint scent of Naruto; it gave her comfort.

"If you're sure," Kakashi said again, waiting for another nod. "Then I'll go." He stood and making the right hand-seals was gone within another second, leaving a cloud of smoke in his place.

Sakura bit her lip, trying to stop the tears again. She rubbed at her eyes fiercely, slightly wincing because they were sore from all the crying. "Naruto," she whispered. "I hope you're alright. I'm sorry I failed you. I want to do something for you; I just don't know what yet."

Another sob.

"Please, know that I love you, even if I can't protect you like you do me," Sakura sniffled. "And if you choose Sasuke over me… Its fine, as long as you're happy. I'll be okay, I swear. I'll become stronger and I'll learn to stand on my own. I'll have to, won't I?"

Sakura gently laughed.

"And once I do, I swear that I'm going to do something to protect you instead of always hurting you." Sakura closed her eyes, day-dreaming about being strong enough to prove her love, and silently cried until sleep claimed her and her day-dreams turned into real dreams.

**

* * *

**

Kakashi reappeared on a roof of a house that was near his own living quarters. He looked back in the direction of Naruto's apartment, wondering if he should have really left Sakura there alone. He considered going back but he did have some other things he wanted to check up on. Naruto, to be exact. Besides, maybe it was for the best for Sakura to be alone for awhile.

Kakashi sighed and with much reluctance and regret, he turned away from the apartment, to head to the room Naruto was sure to be.

Tsunade had shown him this special 'sealing' room for Naruto after it was built. Since he was the boy's sensei, it would be most likely around him, during training, that Kyuubi took over Naruto's body and so he needed to know where the room was so he could transport Naruto there. Of course, the seals wouldn't work without Yamato but if for the few seconds Kakashi was gone to fetch Yamato and Tsunade, Kyuubi fully took over, at least it would be safer to have the beast far away from the village instead of in the village.

Kakashi preformed the same handsigns he had a minute before, and once again, a cloud of smoke swallowed him only to clear away to show he was gone.

When Kakashi appeared in the room, he had to blink to get use to the bright glowing symbols on the ground. When he had first visited the room, it had been almost completely dark and only because of his ninja eye-sight had he been able to see at all. It wasn't that, though, that made him surprised about the light illuminating from the symbols. It was the fact he hadn't a clue about how much strength it took to hold down Kyuubi, and he hadn't thought it would be this much—symbols glowed depending on how much chakra was being fed into them. It must have been an immense amount of chakra to be able to create this much of a glow. In fact, he could feel the chakra being used and it sent a shiver down his spine, but what really got him on edge was the amount of chakra being held back in the center of the room.

When his one eye got used to the light, Kakashi glanced to the center where that impossibly large amount of chakra was. It was, as he had expected, Naruto. The poor blonde was laying on the ground, his back arching from the ground in what must have been pain and his head thrashing back in forth. His mouth was opened in a silent scream. Wood held his ankles and wrist to the floor as his hands and feet struggled to break free. Orange chakra was surrounding him and more wood was holding down the first tail.

It made Kakashi's heart fall seeing his student in such pain. It made him wonder where he had gone wrong. It must've been his teaching skills that had, in the end, made Naruto travel to the past and from that, end up like this. He wished he could take this horrible burden from Naruto or at least, help the young boy share it. Kakashi probably wouldn't be able to stand as much pain as

Naruto was facing at the moment. He couldn't even begin to imagine what it all felt like, having two forces fighting against each other inside his small body—in this case, the powers were

Yamato's and Kyuubi's. Each one was trying to overcome the other, fighting for dominance and control over Naruto's body.

Kakashi tore his eyes away from the young boy, unable to bear looking at the pain on Naruto's face. His eyes searched for the real reason he had come here, although he was unsure if she would still be here.

He found her pacing at the other end of the room, stealing glances at Naruto and the other ninja that were feeding chakra into the symbols. He walked briskly to her, around the edge of the room.

She was mumbling to herself and walking away from him when he called out her name softly.

"Tsunade."

Tsunade's head snapped around to look for whoever had called her name. Her eyes settled on Kakashi. "K-kakashi," she said. "You scared me."

Kakashi bit his lip when he saw Tsunade's face clearly. She looked as if she hadn't slept for a week, and it had only been a couple of hours since this had all happened. The stress must be getting at her.

"W-what do you want?" Tsunade asked, turning her body around to face him. She straightened herself up, obviously trying to hide all her insecurities about the situation.

"I wanted to know how it was going here, if you need any help and how long you think Naruto has," Kakashi told her.

Tsunade nodded, chewing her lip. "I'm guessing we only have about a week before Kyuubi fully takes over," she answered running her hand through her messed up hair. She started to speak frantically as if afraid that if she didn't get it all out Kyuubi would take over while she was talking. "But I… I just don't know. It all depends on how long Yamato can keep going. I told him to use as little chakra as possible and let the other ninjas contribute most of it, because we can replace the other ninjas but not him."

Tsunade took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Her eyes glanced at Naruto and Kakashi could see her wince. "It hasn't even been that long and the other ninja are already exhausted, almost out of chakra. Its amazing how much it takes to fight back Kyuubi's and that orange chakra is _still _growing! I can't even imagine what Naruto's going through. God, I feel so bad for him. I loved that boy so much and now…" she sniffled, and struggled to breathe correctly before continuing. "And now I see him suffering through such pain."

Tsunade cast her eyes downward, sadness overcoming her entire face. "Damn, I need a drink."

Kakashi took a step forward and placed his hands on Tsunade's shoulder. He made Tsunade look into his eye and tried to comfort her. "It'll be okay," he said firmly. "What can I do to help?"

Tsunade bit her lip, taking a few seconds before answering. "Can you find some ninja to take the place of these ninja? And bring us all food and water?"

Kakashi nodded. "Will do; just promise me to keep calm while I'm gone."

Tusnade nodded as well, silently promising to the younger jounin.

Kakashi took a step backwards and then transported himself away to do what Tsunade had asked.

**

* * *

**

**(The Past)**

Naruto walked nervously up to the hokage's building. It would be his second time going in there this one day. This would be the last time for awhile, though, as a backpack hung from his left shoulder that held almost everything he would need to hide out in the mountains for a long time.

Naruto sighed, turning around to look at the village. He couldn't see to much as it was still nighttime. But even so, he could still imagine how the whole village looked; in a grand sunset that washed everything in its beautiful color, to be exact. God, did he love this place, even if the people living here had hated him for almost all his life. He was going to do his best to make sure this place was safe if it sent him to hell.

Naruto bit his lip and turned around to once again face the huge red building that belonged to the Third. He ran quickly up the stairs and then walked briskly through the hallways until he faced the guards at the Hokage's door.

The guards had immediately straightened up out of their slouching positions when they heard someone coming. When Naruto stood in front of them, though, they resettled into their before-hand posture, not caring. Looks of hatred came forth in their eyes as they stared at Naruto.

Naruto very nearly flinched as he stared back at the guards. He hadn't had to face those stares in such a long time that they once again made him feel uncomfortable. He wished that Sasuke was standing next to him to give him that extra strength Sasuke always seemed to give. But no, they had all split up to go to their own homes and to gather supplies for the trip.

_I hope he's already inside the office, _Naruto thought to himself.

"Here to see the Hokage?" one of the guards asked, his voice heavy with the burden of talking to the little 'runt' in front of him. As if he had anything better to do.

Naruto simply nodded. Somewhere deep inside of him, he mocked the guard; many years into the future this same guard would be looking at him with awe and wouldn't even _dare _to think about talking this way to him. Naruto ALMOST felt like chuckling to himself but the stares the guards were sending his way still set him on edge.

The guard who had spoke opened the door and Naruto silently slipped by, his eyes focused on the ground. He could feel their eyes follow him and then finally he heard the door shut.

Relieved that the stares were no longer there, Naruto let his blue eyes travel upward to see five ANBU standing around the office and the Third sitting in his chair. All of them looking at him.

Naruto began to fidget under their intense gazes. They weren't filled as much by hatred but they were staring right into him, studying him.

"Naruto," the Third called in a warm voice, welcoming the seemingly 12-year-old blonde.

Naruto smiled at the Third, his heart warming just a little. "I guess I'm the first one back, huh?" he said while rubbing the back of his head. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything."

"Not at all," the hokage smiled. "I was just finishing telling my ANBU about the predicament we're all in… and more specific, the one you're in."

Naruto blushed. He felt ashamed about everything he had done. If the village was destroyed, it would be his entire fault. And now the ANBU were scrutinizing him, probably deciding whether or not it would just be safer to kill the blonde headed-fool, even if it was going behind the Hokage's back.

"Naruto, I'm actually glad you showed up before the others," The hokage said suddenly. "It would be the best if you told the ANBU ways they can best protect you from Madara, and possibly even how to kill him."

Naruto nodded. He looked at the ANBU, now studying them as they still sized him up themselves. They didn't necessarily look like they had a lot of power and strength, but they were ANBU so they must have. Still, Naruto had doubts if they would be enough.

"Madara," Naruto started in a relaxed voice. "Ah, where to start? Well, he is on hell-a strong bastard, that's for sure. He has this 'space-time' jutsu, or something, that allows him to transport himself virtually anywhere and make parts of his body disappear while others stay. And if that's not enough, he has two sharigan along with the Rinnegan. Honestly, I don't know if the five of you are going to be enough to protect me from the bastard, let alone kill him."

The ANBU looked mildly taken aback, even if Naruto couldn't see beneath their various masks. The Third quirked an eyebrow.

"The Rinnegan?" The third asked, his voice bland. "I thought Pein was the one who had the Rinnegan."

"Oh! Um…" Naruto said, laughing nervously. "It must have slipped my mind. B-But after I killed Pein… well um, I don't know exactly what happened but when I saw Madara again, he had three eyes and one of them was the Rinnegan. So I'm guessing that he took the Rinnegan from Pein."

The Third nodded thoughtfully. "Well, he does sound rather strong—"

"_Rather _strong?" Naruto interrupted. "This guy is _impossibly _strong." His voice gave him the impression that he was leaning way forward with his hands on the hokage's desk although he hadn't moved from his spot.

"Ahem," The third all but growled, a little angry at being interrupted, even if it was by his favorite blonde. "Like I was saying before, he may be strong but these are some of the best ANBU I can offer. And I'm sure with all five, they can handle him."

Naruto shook his head, not believing the words he was hearing. He stared at the hokage with a very serious glint in his blue eyes. "If they're not better than the best, they don't have a chance. I mean, even my dad could barely land a scratch on the guy when they fought."

The Third swallowed, a look of shock and almost fear settling on his face. "Even the fourth couldn't kill him?"

Naruto nodded. "Yes. You see now how powerful he is?"

The third nodded, swallowing another time. "How do think we can beat him then?"

Naruto seemingly relaxed, resting his hands on the back of his head and his blue eyes softening. "Well, we just better hope we don't have to face him until I've gotten almost all my powers back. I was almost able to kill him once." Naruto winced, remembering the battle and how Madara got away. "My last lunge just wasn't fast enough before Madara used his jutsu to slip away. Really, the only way to kill him is to be faster than his jutsu and to predict his moves so you can catch him before he uses it again," he summed up, his arms fall.

"Wow," the third said at a loss of words. "Madara does sound impossible to beat. You must've been really strong in the future."

Naruto stretched an arm across his chest. He gave a confident grin. "Yeah, I was pretty awesome. I even kicked Sasuke's ass when I had to fight him." He dropped his arm to his side and his grin slipped off his face. "I just can't believe I fucked up everything so badly. It's all because of me and my idiocy that we even have to do all of this."

The third gave Naruto a look of worry and pity. He was about to give the genin a word or two of comfort when the door once again opened.

A second later, the older Sasuke came walking confidently through the doors, an air of power surrounded him.

Naruto turned around and gave Sasuke a relieved smile. "Now we only have to wait for Kakashi."

"What, Kakashi's not here?" Sasuke asked. "Then again, he's always late." The Uchiha sighed. "And I had thought I was slow, having to consider what old clothes to pack from long-dead other Uchiha members and all."

Naruto grinned, chuckling to himself. "You didn't let your younger self see you, right?"

Sasuke shook his head. "No, younger-Sasuke wasn't even there. He was probably out training somewhere?"

"At this late hour?" The Third inquired.

Sasuke shrugged as if it was no big deal. "I liked the peace and quiet that night almost always holds. You can go out and train and almost no one will bother you."

Naruto shivered at the thought. He would have hated that. If he didn't absolutely need to be, Naruto never wanted to be alone. He wondered how Sasuke could have grown up liking it when he was alone instead of surrounded by people. Then again, Naruto had only liked being surrounded by others to try and forget the pain of being totally alone while Sasuke had probably liked being alone because if he was surrounded by people it would remind him of his family which would hurt. Naruto nodded in his own mind. That was probably it, but he didn't want to think anymore on the subject at the moment. It was making him pity Sasuke and pitying Sasuke made his stomach and heart hurt in guilt. Maybe he would talk to Sasuke about it later.

Maybe… If he remembered.

"Well, as soon as Kakashi gets here, we'll discuss as to where exactly you guys are going to be going."

Naruto snapped back to attention as he heard those words being said. He just realized he had been spacing out but he wasn't sure if he had missed anything important from the conversation, or if they had been talking at all, and he was too stubborn to ask.

Sasuke nodded. "I have a place in mind, though, so maybe I should show you before Kakashi gets here."

"I have a place in mind as well," The Third said, smiling slightly. "But sure, you can show me." He reached a wrinkly hand into one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out a scroll. The Third unrolled it on his desk and used some random objects on his desk to hold down the corners.

Naruto couldn't see the scroll at his current angle to tell what it was. He moved closer, as did Sasuke, to peer at the scroll. It was a map, as both the young ninja had expected.

The map covered Konoha and all of its surrounding lands, including the mountains.

Naruto didn't see the third perform any hand-signs as he was to busy studying the map, but he heard the Third say some sort of jutsu name and a second later, the map had zoomed in on the mountains. Naruto's eyes widened, not only at how cool it was that the map had responded but also because of the great detail the now zoomed in map showed. It all looked 3D and he felt like he could see every tree on the mountains and there were _a lot _of trees.

The Third pointed to a valley in between the two tallest mountains and a third mountain blocking one side of the valley, only leaving one side open. "This is where I'd thought you guys would go to hide Naruto. It is the most hidden part in the mountains and the hardest part to get to. I'm sure Madara would have a hard time finding you.

Sasuke looked at the map, studying it and nodding to himself thoughtfully. Finally he shook his head.

"No, to obvious," he said. "Madara will probably automatically think we hid in the most hidden part of the mountains and most likely, he'll know exactly where that spot is and will be able to transport himself there. Not to mention that we'd be trapped if he found us, although I guess it doesn't really matter whether we're trapped or not. Once he's found us he won't let Naruto escape no matter what. But still, we should have at least more than one escape route that is easy to take incase of injury. I suggest—here." Sasuke pointed to another spot on the map.

This time it was a valley surrounded by just two smaller mountains, leaving two sides open instead of one.

"It may be a little more obvious, but it definitely won't be Madara's first choice to look," Sasuke told the Third. "We'll probably have to continuously move though, as to not draw attention."

The Third nodded. "Yes, sounds like a plan. That place can be your main camp site, and you can circle around it, moving camp every couple days and such."

Naruto studied the map, looking at where Sasuke had picked for them to camp. He looked at in distaste. It wasn't that he hated that particular spot, it was just that now that they had a set place to go, he knew a hundred percent that they were leaving the village. There was no going back anymore, not that there had been in the first place but still.

"Once Kakashi gets here we can tell him the plan and then you can all leave," The third announced.

It took another ten minutes, but Kakashi finally showed up. No one even bothered asking him why it took so long. They all figured it was useless as he probably wouldn't even tell them something close to being reasonable.

The Third quickly told Kakashi everything about the plan including somethings on Madara as well as pointing to the map while he talked.

When he was done, the hokage told them, "You may go now. I'll be expecting some sort of message every third day."

Kakashi nodded. "Well, we'll be going then." He was just about to perform the 'poofing away' jutsu but Naruto stopped him.

"Um, could we just walk to the gates?" the blonde asked sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "I sorta don't know that jutsu."

Kakashi blinked once and then nodded. "Very well."

And with that, all eight of them left the room, leaving the Third Hokage to himself, to head toward the village gates. They hoped to cover a lot of ground that night and then camp during the day.

**

* * *

**

Sasuke was bent over, his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. His whole body was aching from the training he had just been doing but he refused to lie down. He needed to go through the routine one more time so he could get stronger. He was still way below Itachi's level.

Sasuke could remember coming out here to watch Itachi train. His older brother had only been 13 then, a little older than Sasuke was at the moment, and yet he had hit every single target, even the one behind the rock. Sasuke himself, was still missing a few. It was hard to jump, close your eyes and still hit every damn target!

Sasuke stood up straight, determined to go just one more time. He grabbed a kunai knife with each finger. Then the raven haired boy jumped up, doing half of a flip so his head was facing towards the ground. He closed his eyes and then through his sharp tools to hopefully, hit the targets that hung on various trees.

Once they had all left his hand, Sasuke flipped again and landed on his feet, almost collapsing. The boy swayed for a few seconds, his breaths ragged and his vision going a little blurry. He looked around at the targets. Most of the Kunai had hit the targets, only two had missed. He went around the big rock in the middle to see if that target had been hit. Sasuke frowned when he saw it; there wasn't even a kunai close to where it was.

Damn, he still wasn't strong enough. Those three he had missed, they could end up costing his life when he had to fight Itachi. He needed his accuracy to be a hundred percent. He couldn't stand for anything below that. If he hoped to defeat Itachi he needed to get stronger!

Sasuke grumbled beneath his still harsh breathing. He bet if he had been selected in a different genin group he could receive better training. It wasn't that he hated Kakashi and thought that the jounin was a horrible ninja who couldn't help him train; Kakashi was rather lazy but he was still a strong ninja who could probably help Sasuke train a lot. No, it was because of the stupid blond on his team. Naruto was the worst ninja ever and Sasuke just had to be paired with him so that the blond could drag him down along with himself. If it wasn't for Naruto, Sasuke was sure his genin group would already be doing harder things. Things that he needed to learn so he could kill his brother.

Sasuke's breathing finally returned to normal. He looked around at the targets before walking around to pick up his kunai and return them to his pouch. He then turned to leave.

His mind was still on Naruto as he started to walk away. As much as he tried to convince himself, he knew he didn't hate the blonde, even if he was an idiot. He pretended to hate the boy, but in truth when ever he was around Naruto, a warm feeling enveloped him. He just didn't want that stupid feeling anymore. He had had it when he was with his family, but now they were gone. Maybe he was just afraid of losing anything he loved so he told himself he didn't love anyone at all so he wouldn't have to face that same pain again. But still, he knew somewhere deep inside of him, he rather liked the blonde dobe.

Sasuke reached the stone path that would lead him home. It was also the same path that would lead to the village main gates. His mind was still wandering as he walked.

Suddenly, Sasuke stopped. He sensed that a group of people were coming. He tensed, as he looked ahead of him, the figures just appearing in his line of vision. He didn't really want to be seen as who ever they were would probably be noisy and ask why he was up so late. So Sasuke jumped and hid in the trees that lined the stone path.

He waited there quietly as the figures became closer and clearer. He started to make out five ANBU leading the group, their mainly white masks standing out against the night's darkness. The next person he saw was Kakashi. For once, the jounin didn't have his nose buried in a perverted book. He actually looked worried about something. After Kakashi he saw a new person he had never saw before. He had black hair and pale skin and he was also dressed in what looked like Uchiha clothing. Sasuke knew this man wasn't his brother but could it possibly be that there was another Uchiha left alive?

The weird group came closer and for the first time, Sasuke saw another figure, standing behind the ANBU but in front of Kakashi and the other maybe Uchiha person. He hadn't seen him earlier because this new figure was to short to have seen behind the ANBU.

Sasuke's eyes widened as he recognized him though. It was Naruto. He squinted, trying to see Naruto's face clearly. Amazingly, Naruto didn't have a stupid grin on his face; he actually looked sad, afraid and worried. His blue eyes skittered around nervously, never looking at one spot for more than a second.

Sasuke's curiosity was now fully peeked so as the group passed his hiding spot, Sasuke followed, keeping to the trees. He wondered where the ANBU were taking Naruto and he hated to admit it, but he was also worried for his blond teammate.

Sasuke followed them until they reached the point in the path where it widened and the trees stopped. Sasuke then let the group get way ahead of him before slipping out of his hiding place to follow them at a safe distance. So far, it seemed like they hadn't noticed him.

Sasuke continued to stealthily follow until they reach the main gates. It was then that the group before him stopped. For the first time, Naruto turned around and although Sasuke tried to hide quickly, he knew the blonde had spotted him the second the blue eyes widened. Sasuke stood there, defeated.

The other members of the group also turned around and they all spotted Sasuke at the same time.

Sasuke knew it was pointless to run away so he walked slowly to the group. For the first time, Sasuke looked directly in Naruto's blue eyes and was amazed at what he saw. Naruto's eyes looked older, not like they had the night before. Sasuke knew his own eyes were like that, giving him the impression he was older than he actually was.

"Sasuke?" Naruto called. "You were following us?"

Sasuke tried very to keep any emotion off his face as stood right before the ninjas. He felt like fidgeting under the ANBU's stares but he refused to. He only gave Naruto a quick nod for an answer.

The ninja that Sasuke did not recognize sighed. "If we couldn't even catch him following us, how do we plan to keep Madara from finding us? Oh well, lets just get rid of him so we can keep going."

Sasuke actually did wince as that ninja talked. He could feel the fury in those words, and it scared him a lot more then he wanted it to.

Naruto looked up the ninja. "No," he said simply. "I mean, maybe he should come with us. Madara might try to target him as bait so if he was with us, it might be safer."

The other ninja growled. "No. He will only slow us down."

Naruto pouted, staring hatefully at the older ninja. "And if he doesn't come and Madara ends up killing him? You know what that'll do to you! And you know you don't want that to happen!"

Sasuke was trying really hard to keep his face blank. He was confused, and a little mad, about what the two were talking about. How would killing him affect the other ninja he didn't recognize?

"Naruto does have a point," Kakashi said, joining the conversation.

"Fine, he can come," the other ninja finally agreed, obviously not happy with the results.

"Come for what?" Sasuke finally asked.

All three of them turned to face Sasuke.

Kakashi was the one who spoke. "We are taking Naruto away from the village to help him train."

Sasuke nodded, wondering who this 'Madara' guy was and why Kakashi didn't mention him. He had a feeling that they were hiding something important from him. He looked over at Naruto and noticed the relief that was in his blue eyes.

"It looks like your coming, Sasuke," Kakashi said. "If you want to."

"I'll come," Sasuke answered.

With that, all nine ninjas walked towards the gate. Kakashi stopped for a second to talk to one of the guards there. He told him to tell the hokage that the young Sasuke here was coming with them. The guard nodded before all of them left.

Sasuke didn't even go back to his house to get any supplies. He wasn't sure how long they would be gone but he figured he could just share stuff with Naruto. Well, he didn't want to share stuff with Naruto but Kakashi wasn't going to let him go and get his own stuff.

Sasuke wondered where exactly they were going as they started their journey away from the village.

* * *

**Author Notes: **Wow, this is my longest chapter yet. ^^ Sorry if the end was rushed.

**Pen-Name-Kitsune-Chan: **Pssh, of course I'm gonna take your advice into consideration. I really want to improve as a writer and you're helping me. But seriously, thanks for the tips, I'm not sure if I approved at all in the chapter but I'm working on it.

**SenceLess: **Thanks so much! ^^ I have to say that before I wasn't even really considering Sasuke and Naruto's relationship but now I have something big planned for them. (At least I think its big. xP) Thanks, for giving me the idea and for reviewing. xD


	11. Chapter 11

**This Whole Thing is a Mess**

**Disclaimer**: I wish I owned him…. But I don't think I ever will.

**Author Notes**: I'm not dead, I swear, but I'm SO sorry it has been so long. =( I really do want to finish this story, and I'm hoping you guys are still here to read it. I'm going to try and update every other week now.

* * *

**Chapter 11**

**(past)**

They had been continuously running for what had to be at least 3 hours. It had been late when they had left the village and it was now even later. The moon hung above the trees, but its light barely reached below all the leaves to light the group of ninja's way. In other words, it was dark. And Sasuke hated to admit it, but he was having a hard time seeing where he was going.

He had started out fine, being able to keep up with the group and using his senses to know when to land and jump off of tree branches. He probably could have gone faster even, and he had been amazed that the anbu weren't pushing the group harder. Then he realized they were probably going slower so Naruto could keep up.

But now, Sasuke was beginning to slow down. He had trained himself hard that day, pushing himself until he could barely stand. He should have gone home and gotten some sleep before going on a run like this. He still had no idea where they were going, but he could sense urgency in the footsteps of the others, even if they weren't going as fast as they could. He knew that if he stopped, he would more likely be left behind than have a chance to get some answers. He knew when to wait, and this was one of those times. He just had to keep up.

But it seemed with every jump and land, that the group was getting farther and farther ahead of him._ Dammit_, he thought to himself. He had to keep going, had to catch up! How was he ever going to beat Itachi if he couldn't even manage to keep up with some ninjas! Even Naruto was ahead of him... Damn, how could that dobe be doing better than him?

Sasuke had been 100 times better than him in everything they did when they were at the academy. And then suddenly, as soon as they got to be genins, the idiot acts smart, like he knew what he was doing! It really pissed Sasuke off. Naruto was definitely hiding something, and whatever it was, Sasuke was going to find out.

Suddenly, he was passing the others in the group. He looked back and saw that everyone had stopped. His momentum carried him a few more branches before he too, was able to stop. He turned around and hopped to them.

Sasuke managed to keep a passive face as that maybe-Uchiha guy glared at him. He had never seen someone with such a glare except for his father and Itachi. He had to be a Uchiha, but was it possible? He had lived a long time thinking he and his brother were the only two left of his clan, and only one of them actually deserved to live. Sasuke's hopes wanted to grow, but he quenched them. If this guy was a Uchiha, he probably worked with his brother and he should be killed. Somehow, he must be fooling Kakashi and the anbu to think he was a good guy.

"You're slowing us down," the guy said. His voice was laced with disappointment.

Sasuke wasn't about to apologize, or stutter, even if that stupid glare made him feel like it. It took some effort, but he glared back defiantly. "I don't know where you guys are headed exactly, but it's late," Sasuke growled. "And if we want to not sleep through most of tomorrow, I say we get some sleep."

The maybe-Uchiha opened his mouth as if to speak again, but Naruto jumped in before he could. Stupid dobe joining into his arguments!

"Sasuke's right!" Naruto said. "We've been traveling for a long time, and I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired." He yawned as if it to emphasize that point. "And we don't want to be sleeping all day tomorrow!"

Sasuke was a bit taken aback by Naruto's words. He thought the idiot would have said something like, 'I can keep running! Believe it!' or something dumb like that. But instead, he actually made sense. Although looking at his teammate, Naruto didn't look that tired and he probably could have kept going. He wasn't doing this to be nice to Sasuke, was he? Didn't Naruto hate him?

Yes, something was really wrong with Naruto if he was actually taking Sasuke's side. Sasuke was almost tempted to say that he could keep going, but he had already said they should stop. He wasn't going to take that back.

"Yes," Kakashi was next to agree. "We wouldn't want Madara to catch us all while we were half asleep, now would we?"

Madara... that name seemed familiar to Sasuke, but he couldn't quite place it. Who the hell was the guy? He knew he had something with why they had all left the village and it seemed like they were hiding from him, but why? And why take Naruto?

Hadn't they said they had to train Naruto? But what did that have to do with Madara? Sasuke just couldn't figure out the link and it was starting to hurt his head.

"Alright, we'll stop," one of the anbu's said, making the decision final. Sasuke couldn't figure out what one of anbu had spoken because of the masks. "No tents, we can sleep under the stars. We'll take turns keeping watch. We'll sleep underneath this tree."

"Great!" Naruto said joyously as the anbu one by one jumped down from the tree. The four of them glanced at each other before all jumping down at the same time.

Sasuke would be lying if he said the fall hadn't been further than he had expected it to. Still, it hadn't hurt that bad. He stood up from his crouch, and began to shiver. Since he wasn't running anymore, the cold air and the breeze got to his skin.

The others were already laying out sleeping bags. He really didn't want to ask anyone if they had a spare one, but if he didn't, he knew he would freeze to death. But before he could...

"Kakashi should have an extra sleeping bag, right sensei?" Naruto said as if he could read Sasuke's thoughts.

Kakashi dug one out of the bag he had been carrying on his back. Sasuke nodded his thanks to Naruto before laying his borrowed one down on the edge of the groups, next to Naruto's. Even if he hated the guy, it beat sleeping next to anyone else.

He got inside quickly and was immediately overcome with warmth. He didn't want to be seen snuggling into it though, so he just stared calmly up at the stars. He heard Naruto kneel down next to him and unzip his own sleeping bag but Kakashi called to him before he could get in.

"Naruto, can we talk?" Kakashi called.

Sasuke lifted himself on one elbow and watched as Naruto ran off to Kakashi and the maybe-Uchiha guy standing a few yards away. They exchanged a few words quietly so Sasuke couldn't hear, then Naruto glanced back at him. Sasuke saw hesitation in those blue eyes, but then Naruto turned around again and the three of them walked further away to the point where the shadows hung heavy around them and Sasuke could just barely make out their outlines.

He thought he saw an anbu join them, but he couldn't be sure. He couldn't deny that he was a bit curious. What was it that they had to talk about? Why couldn't he know? And why were they talking to Naruto? Were they entrusting the dobe to some secrets? He hoped they would know better than that.

Sasuke finally made himself lay back down. He tried to fall asleep, but found himself staring at the endless layers of branches and leaves above him. He just couldn't figure out why Naruto was being so nice to him.

* * *

Naruto couldn't help himself but to keep glancing behind his back at young Sasuke. He could barely see the boy underneath the tree, but he saw enough to ensure himself that Sasuke was still there. That Madara hadn't stolen him away to use as bait or something else sickening.

Unless, of course, Madara had put something there to make him think Sasuke was still there when he wasn't. Naruto unconsciously put a hand on his stomach, he was beginning to feel sick. He had to look back again, and this time, he waited until he saw the shadow of the other shift.

He was being stupid. The anbu wouldn't let Madara just sneak in to grab Sasuke. They may not be able to stop the guy, but they would have at least noticed and notified the rest of the group. Then again, Madara was good at being stealthy. What if he had already taken out all of the anbu except for the one sitting next to him?

The calling of his name snapped him out of his worries momentarily. He took a shaky breathe and faced forwards again. "What?" He had hadn't been paying attention to what Kakashi had been saying. He tried to focus, but he was itching to look back again.

"Naruto, we need to come up with a story to tell young Sasuke," Kakashi said. "Since we can't tell him classified information that you two are from the future."

Naruto rubbed at his eyes and yawned. Damn, he really was tired. "Uh... we already told him that I had to train, right?"

Kakashi nodded after a second or two. "Yes, we could tell him that. But why all the anbu? and we've already mentioned Madara around him."

Naruto thought about it, going every possibility he could think of. "Well, I don't see the problem in telling him I have a demon inside of me, so we could just say... uh."

Luckily, older Sasuke was able to come up with an actual idea. "We could tell him that Naruto needs to train to better protect himself against enemies who might be after the Kyuubi. The anbu are obviously here to protect him. And since he's here, he can train with Naruto for better teamwork."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Naruto said. "It's only partially a lie."

"Sounds good," Kakashi said as they all looked at the anbu, waiting for approval. As soon as they got a nod, they continued on talking.

"I suppose I need a name," Sasuke said. "We don't want to raise any unnecessary suspicions. I already look enough like him."

"Agreed," Naruto said. A few seconds later he got what he thought was a good name. "How about Kusas?"

"Kusas?" Sasuke tested it out.

'Yeah, you know, Sasuke spelled backwards, without the 'e'?" Naruto informed them all. "It's not like it's permanent. You only have to have it for about a week."

"Hn," was all the answer Sasuke gave, but it was an approving 'hn', Naruto could tell.

"Kusas it is, then," Kakashi said.

Naruto gave a huge yawn and stretched his arms above his head. "Well, I'm really tired. Is that all?"

"Yeah," his sensei answered.

"Great." Naruto said while giving another yawn. He got up and stumbled tiredly to his sleeping bag in between the two Sasuke's. He practically fell down on top of it before crawling inside it's welcoming warmth. He rested his head on his arm and stared at younger Sasuke as he listened to older Sasuke and Kakashi get into their own sleeping bags.

His heart felt heavy with guilt and he tried to focus on Sasuke's rising and falling chest. Naruto had been so stupid to suggest bringing young Sasuke along with them. It was only risking his safety more than if they had left him back at Konoha because who was Naruto kidding? Madara wasn't likely to go after young Sasuke in the village to kill or to use as bait when Naruto was maybe even easier to get to.

Naruto rolled onto his back, letting out a huge sigh. This whole trip had been doomed from the start. Naruto had only been being selfish by letting young Sasuke join them. It was all going to be his fault when everyone got killed. Why couldn't he stop fucking everything up?

* * *

Morning came way too quickly for Naruto. It seemed he had just fallen asleep when he was being shaken awake. It took him a second to comprehend as to why someone was waking him. In his half-asleep mind, he was at home perfectly happy. Who could be trying to wake him at such an early hour!

But the second he did realize, he bolted straight up, knocking heads with Kakashi-sensei.

"Ouch," he cried, cradling his head. He looked around frantically, his heart beating loudly in his chest. Were they under attack? Had something bad happened? He hurriedly got out of his sleeping bad, but the material got tangled in his legs and Naruto found himself face down against the ground.

Crap, at this rate, he was going to be killed. He stood up more carefully this time but still quickly, and stepped away from the sleeping bag. That's when he saw older Sasuke, or /Kusas/, standing a few yards away, smirking at him.

Naruto frowned, getting the message. They weren't under attack. They were just about to leave for the day. He had freaked out for no reason. Still, it took his heart a few minutes to calm down. Naruto blushed madly as he folded up his sleeping bag messily.

What if they had actually been under attack? Naruto was just proving how much of a inconvenience he was to the whole group... It was like being 12 again, literally, not just being in the body again but actually reliving his experiences when he was truly 12.

It seemed everyone else was already ready by the time had his back-pack on his shoulders. Naruto pretended that that didn't get to him as he pointed ahead of him with one hand and shouted. "Let's go!"

The anbu were the first to jump away, leaving the rest of the group to follow which they did. Naruto was surprised that young Sasuke followed without so much as a question. Wasn't he curious as to where they were going? Naruto knew if it was him, he would be asking questions left and right. But that was just one of the many differences between them, Naruto supposed.

Naruto let the group get a few feet in front of him so that he could keep his eyes glued on young Sasuke's back. His doubts from yesterday were already coming back. They had actually started about five minutes after they had left the village yesterday and to make matters worse, it had been dark, a perfect place for his imagination to take control of all the shadows.

He just wanted to look out and care for Sasuke, young and older. But it was becoming more and more apparent that he wasn't capable of doing that. He was stupid by thinking that if he went back in time, he could save Sasuke. Sasuke's problems went beyond him, and he should've been able to do something in the future instead. Coming back in time had only served as a bigger problem than his original one was.

They ran for about three hours before deciding to take a small break and eat some food for energy. They only had a few more hours left before they reached their destination. And then it would be straight to training.

As they sat down, one of anbu pulled out a bag of some horrible tasting balls that were supposed to give you tons of energy. Naruto hated those things, but he could live. The anbu passed out one to each person before they all swallowed them.

It was all the food they were going to get, sadly.

"So Sasuke," Kakashi said. "You probably want to know where we're going, right?"

Young Sasuke looked up from the ground, his face emotionless. Naruto hated how he always did that. "Hn." Couldn't he at least give more of an answer?

"Well, we're taking Naruto, and you now, to go and train in the middle of the mountains and forest," Kakashi continued as if Sasuke's seeming lack of interest didn't bother him at all. Kakashi quickly explained all the things they had talked about last night. Sasuke only arched an eyebrow when finding out Naruto had the nine-tails sealed inside of him.

"Oh, and this is Kusas," Kakashi added, motioning to older Sasuke. The two Sasuke's looked at each other and nodded their greetings.

Naruto let out a deep breathe. His heart had been racing during all of that in fear that Sasuke would freak out and not except their explanation, even if that wasn't Sasuke's character.

And again, they took off. Naruto would be lying if he said that all the running wasn't getting boring. He wanted to start training already so he could get all of his powers back and so he could fix all the damn problems he had made! But he just had to keep on waiting.

* * *

The third hokage was seated at his desk, dressed in his usual attire. He seemed confident, and sure of himself and his face didn't show one hint of the doubt he was feeling inside. Before him stood Shikumaru's dad, Shikaku Nara.

"So, you want me to train Sakura while Kakashi is out with Naruto and Sasuke?" Shikaku inquired. His voice sounded like he expected there was more that the third wasn't telling him.

Which was true, the third wasn't telling him the whole story. But he couldn't just be giving out this information to everyone, it had to stay as classified as much as possible. The less people who knew, even people like Shikaku Nara, the better.

"Yes," the third sighed. Shikaku was a smart man though, he would probably find out was wrong eventually. But the third hokage could at least hope he wouldn't.

"Fine, when do you wish me to start?" Shikaku Nara agreed.

"Tomorrow," the Third Hokage answered him. "I will have one of the guards send for Sakura immediately." With that, the hokage did just as he said, signalling to one of the guards before they jumped away.

He hoped Sakura was already up, it was pretty early in the morning. He wondered how she would take it, being left out on an adventure, especially one involving Sasuke. The Third had almost called the whole group back when he heard word that young Sasuke had joined them, for that hadn't been part of their agreement! But he decided that maybe it was best if young Sasuke had gone with.

But he had had so many doubts since last night. The Hokage's job was to protect the village, and sometimes he had to do things that he wouldn't normally do to serve that purpose. Believing Naruto and Kakashi last night had been a risk, but not believing them might have been a risk as well.

He hadn't actually sent out his best anbu, although he had sacrificed them some of his top anbu. He was afraid this would break out into a war, and if that happened, he needed his best anbu here. Not away from the village.

The door creaked open and Sakura walked slowly into the room. She looked around the room, confusion plainly written on her face as she walked towards the center. Shikaku Nara was still there, standing towards the edge of the room.

"You sent for me, Hokage-sama?" Sakura asked. She was such a polite young girl.

"Yes. I have something to tell you," the Third said, pausing before he continued. "You know how Sasuke and Naruto never get along, right? Well I sent the two of them out with Kakashi on a small little camping trip in the hopes of getting them to work together. That way, your team will be more affective. "

Her mouth dropped open. "Sasuke-kun, is out with Naruto and Kakashi-sensei?"

"Yes, and I told them not to return until they can get along," The Third lied. He hated lying, but sometimes it was necessary. He had been taught that. "Until then, Shikaku Nara will continue to train you."

Sakura looked like she was about to argue but she stopped herself, probably not wanting to be rude with the hokage. "O-okay."

"Good," The Third smiled. "You may have today off, but tomorrow I expect you both here at 9 am sharp to begin your D missions. And then train."

Sakura nodded.

"You are dismissed."

* * *

**(present)**

Tsunade twirled the bottle of sake in her hand around, listening to the swish-swish of the alcohol running against the sides. She had started out with a whole bottle but now it was nearly gone. She was going to need a new bottle soon.

If Shizune had been here, no doubt she would have stopped Tsunade from drinking, for you can't drink your problems away! But she didn't understand, drinking enabled Tsunade to keep the stress off of her problems and to think more logically. Well, maybe it made her more illogical, but she wasn't so stressed!

Tsunade put down the bottle, the clack against the wood making her wince. She just didn't know where to go from here. There was pretty much nothing she could do at this point except sit back and let it happen. God, she hopped Sasuke would be able to bring Naruto back, and soon.

Yamato was already beginning to run out of chakra, and if he ran out, then the sealing jutsu they were doing at the moment, would completely fail. And even without that risk they still didn't have much time before Kyuubi completely took over Naruto. And the thought of killing the boy, was heart wrenching. She loved him, even when he was being an annoying brat. But still, it might be their only option. But what if she couldn't and Kyuubi did take over?

She sighed, it would just be like it was a little over sixteen years ago, when Kyuubi escaped. Except this time, they wouldn't have the fourth Hokage to seal the demon away. Kyuubi would trample over the village and than head to the other countries.

The other countries deserved to know what was happening, just in case.

She recalled Sasuke's words. 'If you have to, call Gaara for help.' Well, she supposed she must at this point. If Kyuubi was going to escape, Gaara might be able to capture him.

The door suddenly burst open, but Tsunade barely bristled. She was enjoying her relaxed state too much to get angry for someone coming in without being welcomed. She looked up to see Sakura standing by her desk, a determined look on her face.

"Tsunade, I want to do something for Naruto!" Sakura told her firmly. "I want to help in anyway I can!"

This was perfect, figured Tsunade. "Great. How about you run over to Gaara and warn him about what's happening?"

For a second, Sakura's face faltered as she had probably been expecting something more direct to helping Naruto, but it reset itself. "Okay."

"Good, it would normally take you three days to get there," Tsunade informed. "I need you there in no less than two. Take a whole bunch of energy food and eat those. Rest as little as possible but don't overwork yourself too much and die on me."

"Leave right away. You can tell Gaara all the details," Tsunade continued. She suspected that Sakura already knew about Naruto going back in the past, and Sasuke following after him. "Let him know that we may only have about a week before Kyuubi is completely in control. Now go!"

Sakura barely nodded before turning and running. Tsunade sank further into her chair, grabbing her sake and taking a big gulp. She knew her student wouldn't let her down. Gaara would be warned in no less than two days. And maybe he would send ninjas to help her out.

_Hurry up Sasuke._

**End of Chapter 11**

* * *

Again, I'm SO sorry for the long wait and I'll try to get the next chapter up soon.


	12. Chapter 12

**This Whole Thing is a Mess**  
**Disclaimer:** I still don't own him  
**Author Notes**: Well, it was a bit longer than two weeks... but it hasn't been too long, has it? hehe, sorry... But enjoy this chapter!

Reminder that Kusas is older Sasuke.

* * *

**Chapter 12**

**(past)  
**

The sun was past it's peak in the sky by a couple of hours when the group arrived at their destination. Naruto immediately plopped down on the ground, feigning exhaustion from running all day and from yesterday as well. He stared up at the sky while hoping they would hurry up and get started with his training. He couldn't afford to waste time.

Kakashi came and sat next to him and he was soon followed by the two Sasuke's. The anbu dispersed to do whatever they had to do.

"Let's eat some real food before beginning training," Kakashi said. Everyone agreed, and Naruto's stomach growled hungrily. Kakashi pulled out a few packs of instant Ramen and Naruto's eyes literally lit up with joy.

"You brought Ramen?" he asked happily. He could have given Kakashi a huge hug right then, but he held back. Instead he just began to bounce where he was sitting, anticipating having that delicious food in his mouth. When he was older, Naruto had stopped eating Ramen so much because people had convinced him he couldn't live off of only that, but he still loved the stuff.

Kakashi nodded at Naruto, smiling behind his mask. Naruto was drooling as his sensei began to prepare it. Older Sasuke, or Kusas, rolled his eyes, making a 'Che' sound.

When they got their food, Naruto slurped down his quickly while everyone else ate slowly, waiting for it to cool.

"So, Sasuke," Kakashi began to make small talk. "Are you tired from that run?"

Naruto could tell from Sasuke's face that he was pretty tired but the young ninja shook his head.

Naruto rolled his eyes and began to stretch one arm behind his head. "So.. What's the plan for training today? I guess I shouldn't hold back anymore, huh?"

Naruto frowned when he heard young Sasuke choke on his noodles. "What's so funny?" he challenged.

"You 'holding' back?" Sasuke scoffed. "You're the dead last, idiot. What's their to hold back? You're always trying your hardest and failing."

Naruto's eyebrow twitched and he stopped his stretch. Then he shouted, "Oh yeah! You just wait and see! I can beat your ass any day!"

"Are you sure about that?" Sasuke said back, smirking.

"Yeah! In fact," Naruto said, standing up. He put a fist close to Sasuke's face. "Let's fight right here and now and we'll see who's the better ninja!"

Sasuke was standing up as well, after putting his bowl of ramen down when Kakashi interrupted the two.

"Anyway," the jounin called, causing both Naruto and Sasuke to look over at their sensei. "As much as I love to see you two fight, this is not the time. We need to focus on training, not just pointless fighting, although maybe we can allow you two sprawl. But not now."

Naruto sighed before dropping his fist and sitting back down. Kakashi was right. Naruto was only making a fool out of himself. Oh, how easy it was to slip back into his twelve year old habits.

Sasuke began to eat again, acting like nothing had just happened. Kusas was giving Naruto a disappointed look, making Naruto feel guilty. If he wanted to save everyone, he really needed to learn to grow up.

"So... what is on the agenda today?" Naruto asked again. He eyed Sasuke, making sure the boy wasn't going to say something again.

Kakashi seemed to think for a moment. "Well, how about you try and learn the Rasengan again? Or any other jutsu you have. We really only need to get your chakra levels up, since you have good control. As for Sasuke, you can continue on with tree climbing."

Sasuke looked up. "Naruto doesn't have to continue on with the tree climbing?"

Naruto grinned, resting his hands on the back of his head. "Nope, I got that down." If Sasuke only knew how powerful Naruto really was, the Uchiha would be amazed. Naruto could not help but laugh at this.

"Cheh," Sasuke smirked. "You barely got a few feet off the ground last time."

Again, Naruto's eyebrows twitched and he was tempted to start another fight. But he held himself back. "I've been practicing okay? I could show you right now that I can run up a tree!"

Naruto looked over at Kakashi, his eyes huge as he begged. "Can I sensei? Can I show Sasuke that I'm better than him."

Kakashi gave a sigh before inclining his head. "If it really makes you feel better, sure."

Before Kakashi had even finished his sentence, Naruto was already up and running towards the nearest tree. He quickly focused chakra at his feet before leaping into the air. He made a thud sound as he hit the tree, and for a split second, it seemed like Naruto would fall. but then it was over and without hesitation Naruto ran up the rest of the tree. He stopped at the very tippy top, catching his breath and looking out over the other tree tops, enjoying the view. Then he ran back down.

This had all taken less than a minute and when Naruto was on the ground again, Sasuke's eyes were slightly larger than before, giving away his shock.

"See? Beat that!" Naruto boasted, pointing a finger at Sasuke.

Sasuke stood up, and ran straight for Naruto. Naruto braced himself, waiting for an impact but Sasuke only ran past him and to the tree. Naruto watched as Sasuke too was able to make it quite far up the tree then the young ninja slipped and he started falling. Naruto held his breath, afraid he would fall straight to the ground and bang his head but instead, Sasuke caught himself on a branch and swung his body so he was sitting on.

So Sasuke wasn't even close to how far Naruto had gone, but Naruto was still impressed. It probably wouldn't be long until Sasuke had it down.

Sasuke jumped down, a small frown on his face. It was the only sign that Sasuke was disappointed in not being able to go as far as Naruto.

"That was pretty good, actually," Naruto reassured him. "Especially for a ninja your age."

Sasuke gave him a weird look and Naruto realized his mistake. He had been talking as if he was a lot older than Sasuke, which was true, but Sasuke didn't know that and he couldn't know that.

"haha, I'm older than you aren't I?" Naruto asked, laughing and pretending that the other thing he had said had been a joke. "As your elder, I should be better."

"I'm pretty sure I'm older than you," Sasuke said matter of factly.

"Well.." Naruto stalled trying to think of a come back. "Damn."

"If you guys are done, I think we should start training now," Kakashi said loudly while standing. Kusas stood as well. Kakashi nodded towards Naruto. "Naruto, you know what to do." Then he threw a kunai knife at Sasuke's feet. "You'll need that to mark the tree."

Naruto could have sworn he heard Sasuke give a light growl as he bent over to pick up the kunai knife. He chuckled. It must have been annoying to have the dead last be suddenly better than you at everything. If Naruto had been in Sasuke's shoes he would have thought himself an imposter of some sort and then tried to kill said imposter.

Naruto made a few shadow clones and sent them all to try and create the Rasengan in pairs of two.

In a way, Naruto was an imposter. Sure, he was actually Naruto, spirit and soul, but he didn't belong in this time period. Sasuke knew that, or at least sensed that something was wrong with Naruto.

Hmm, is all this effecting the future? Naruto asked himself. What if he returned to the future to find everything drastically changed. It would be just his luck if he found it destroyed by the ten tailed bijuu. Then again, Naruto would most likely never be alive to see that day. And hopefully, no one else would have to live through it either.

Naruto was going to fix this, all of this. He was going to fix all of the mistakes he had made before his people had to suffer too much.

One hour later, Naruto almost had the Rasangen down. It would have been easier if he had had the same tools that Jiraiyi had him use the first time he was learning this technique but he had to make do without them. Still, he was able to create the darn thing, even though some of his chakra escaped the tight ball and he wasn't able to hold it for very long.

Naruto dispelled all of his clones, dropping the Rasengan he was currently holding and plopped down onto the ground. He was tired of doing the same thing for a whole hour, he wanted to do something more. Something that seemed more worthwhile, even though he knew he needed the rasengan to learn his Wind shuriken again.

Naruto looked around the clearing. Kakashi-sensei was sparring with Sasuke, or er, Kusas. He studied them, watching as they both moved as if dancing with each other. Sasuke would lash out and Kakashi would easily avoid and vice versa. Each move was graceful.

Naruto loved watching Kusas fight. It took him away from the world. It made him jealous that he wasn't as graceful, his moves were more rough, but also a warm feeling blossomed in his heart, and Naruto knew he was proud of Sasuke, that the Uchiha had made it that far. Of course, that wasn't to say Naruto was any weaker. Naruto preferred a friendly fight against Kusas rather than watching him. For a second, Naruto felt resentment towards Kakashi, wishing he was in his sensei's place.

Naruto finally dragged his eyes away to look at the rest of the clearing. He saw one anbu in one of the trees looking out over them. He didn't see any others.

Sasuke was still running up the same tree as he had started on an hour ago. The marks on his tree had already gotten surprisingly higher. Naruto nodded, happy for his friend.

Sasuke stopped the next time he came back down. Naruto saw his flushed face and wondered how the boy wasn't leaning over and panting. Sasuke caught his eye, and for a second they stared at each other but Sasuke smirked.

"Tired already, Naruto?" Sasuke snickered.

Naruto frowned. "No, I'm just taking a break. What about you? You look pretty beat to me."

Sasuke scoffed. "I could keep doing this all day," he lied.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. Well, I could keep training all day too."

"Then why'd you stop?"

Naruto stood, holding up a fist at Sasuke, threateningly. "You're just asking me to shove your face in, aren't you?"

Sasuke gave a small chuckle. "Like you could," was all he said.

Naruto began to growl. "That's it. We're fighting, I don't care what Kakashi says. Get ready, bastard. You're about to be beaten."

Naruto stretched his arms, and Sasuke crossed his arms nonchalant and smirked at him. Naruto really wanted to wipe that stupid thing off his face before it drove him insane!

"Naruto," Kakashi-sensei called.

Naruto glanced over at Kakashi and Kusas to find they had stopped fighting. They were both gazing at Sasuke and him. Naruto hopped they wouldn't stop him.

"You two may spar, as long as you don't kill each other," Kakashi said strictly. "Let's say, only taijutsu. No weapons."

"What!" Naruto almost screamed. "I can't use any jutsus?"

Kakashi pulled out one of the books that he always read and waved Naruto away with a hand. "Rules are rules," he said distracted. Then he looked up, remembering that he had forgotten someone. "Oi, Kusas, I think we're done for the moment."

Naruto turned his head back towards Sasuke. The Uchiha still looked confident and so, Naruto grinned. The fool was in for a load of surprises. He wouldn't even be able to defend himself against Naruto.

"You ready?" he asked, readying himself to run at Sasuke. He figured he would amuse himself and let Sasuke start out thinking that he had the upperhand. Then, he would go all out and wipe that stupid smirk off that Uchiha's stupid looking face.

Sasuke shrugged. He stood there normally, not even taking up a stance. Naruto scoffed. It wasn't like he cared.

Naruto launched himself forward and jumped at the Uchiha in false hopes of tackling the guy. In reality, he knew Sasuke would avoid it, which was exactly what happened. Instead of falling to the ground, Naruto landed on his feet and faced Sasuke's emotionless face.

"Oi, Naruto! Don't attack your enemies straight forward like that." Kakashi called out.

Naruto's confident mood was swept away and he turned to his sensei, his mouth agape. "I know! You don't have to te-"

Naruto was caught off guard as Sasuke kicked him on the side of his head, sending him flying sideways. He landed with a thud on the ground on his back. He struggled to support himself with one elbow and wiped at his cut lip, leaving a little bit of blood on his hand.

He got back up to his feet, his hands on his knees as he glared at the smirking Sasuke.

"And don't loose focus while fighting!" Kakashi tipped.

"SHUT UP!" Naruto screamed, turning his face, once again, to confront his teacher.

"That could be the death of you," Kakashi said calmly as Naruto was being punched in the stomach by Sasuke.

Naruto coughed, sending spit and maybe even a little blood flying from his mouth. He gripped his stomach. "Damn." That punch had been really hard. Sasuke definitely wasn't holding anything back. Not that Naruto wanted him to.

Sasuke had bounded backwards after that punch and was staring at Naruto, amused. As if Naruto wasn't even worth his time. Naruto had really had enough of that attitude. He stood up straight, ignoring the slight pain in his stomach that would soon be gone anyways. He grinned and pointed a finger at Sasuke, who had crossed his arms.

Naruto opened his mouth, about to speak when he was so rudely interrupted.

"Seriously Naruto," Kakashi said with a tone that clearly said no messing with him. "Stop fooling around."

Naruto stamped his foot on the ground and turned his finger to Kakashi. "I know what I'm doing it, dammit!"

This time as Sasuke made a move to hit him, Naruto caught his fist without even looking. He turned himself around, not letting go of Sasuke's wrist and twisting it. Sasuke had a look of surprise on his face but that was quickly replaced with blankness.

Even with his wrist captured, Sasuke brought his foot up and around and attempted to kick Naruto in the side. Naruto only caught his ankle as well with his other hand. Sasuke struggled to get out of Naruto's grip but it was in vain.

Naruto waited a few more seconds before releasing Sasuke, pushing the Uchiha back and jumping away himself.

The two ninjas stared at each other for a little while, and as if they had decided on it, they both ran at each other at the same time. They began to exchange blows immediately.

Naruto tried to hit Sasuke in the chest but Sasuke dodged retaliating by going for Naruto's side. Naruto knocked that blow away effortlessly whilst trying to kick the Uchiha. And this is how they spent the next couple of minutes. Neither one of them could land a good blow on the other, but then again, Naruto still wasn't trying very hard.

Eventually, they broke apart. Naruto rested his hands on his knees as he panted. His clothes were sticking to him with sweat and he wanted nothing more than to remove his jacket but he couldn't lose sight of Sasuke. The bastard would probably attack while Naruto was distracted.

Naruto gritted his teeth. The muscles of this body were already throbbing and begging for him to take it easy. He hated this. In his older body, he would be fine right now. This wouldn't even had been considered a sufficient work out.

At least, looking at the other boy, Sasuke didn't seem to be in any better condition. He was sweating and panting to and yet he still managed to keep his glare.

That was it. Naruto was taking him down. He ignored his body pain's as he rushed towards the Uchiha. Sasuke only paused half a second before running with the same amount of speed towards Naruto. Naruto looked like he was about to punch Sasuke but at the last second before he made contact with Sasuke's skin, Naruto maneuvered himself around the Uchiha, moving so fast that he seemingly disappeared out of sight before reappearing behind Sasuke.

Sasuke didn't even have time to react as Naruto grabbed both his wrists and held them to his back as he pushed Sasuke onto his stomach on the ground. Naruto dug his knee into his back, pushing harshly for just a second. Sasuke struggled for a little awhile before it became clear, even to him, that Naruto wasn't about to let go.

"That was too easy," Naruto bragged, laughing. "Your worse than I thought Sasuke. Weren't you supposed to be the best in our class or something? And now you're letting the 'dead last' beat you up? Did someone go soft?"

Sasuke mumbled something that Naruto didn't catch.

"Huh?" Naruto leaned in closer to the boy's head. "What'd you say?"

A loud cough came from the other side of clearing, causing Naruto to look up.

"Good job, Naruto," Kakashi congratulated. He didn't sound too enthused. "Now that you guys have your feud settled. Get back to training."

Naruto waited a little longer before releasing Sasuke. The boy slowly got up and the look on his face was priceless. His usually calm face was shocked.

_'Heh. He's probably wondering how and when I got so much stronger than him. Serves the bastard right.'_ Naruto couldn't help but smirk. He didn't get the chance often to rub something in Sasuke's face.

"Heh, whatever," Sasuke said, standing up and dusting himself off quickly.

"Eh?" Naruto was shocked. He was hoping for more of a reaction. He supposed Sasuke wasn't the one to dwell on things that he wasn't the best at.

"You heard Kakashi," Sasuke said. "Get back to training."

Naruto grumbled, before turning around and leaving Sasuke be. It was his way of saying that he was complying. Sighing, he rubbed at his sore muscles before he once again made shadow clones and continued on with his training.

* * *

**(future)**

It had been two days of hard traveling. One of those days being spent running through the dessert with the sun beating down with all its might. It was a huge understatement to say the Sakura was tired and also relieved to have finally arrived at her destination.

It was pretty much a miracle she had found this place without a guide, someone who came here regularly. All of the dessert land looked the same. A barren place filled with brown that reached towards the horizon. Harsh winds had blown the sand in her face quite frequently, making it even harder to see where she was going and make sense of direction. If she hadn't been so lucky, she could still be in the dessert wandering around aimlessly until she collapsed from exhaustion. Maybe it had been the fact that she had been here once before with her teammates.

Thinking of her teammates- Naruto. She wiped at her forehead, staring up at the intimidating wall of Sunagakure. She had no time to waste, so no matter how much she wanted to find shelter and someplace cool, she needed to speak with Gaara, right now! She trudged forward, ignoring how uncomfortable it was in her clothes with all the sweat. She hadn't had time to change. She had only stopped briefly to swallow her energy pills, so other than that, she hadn't even stopped to sleep. The effects were really showing on her body with bags under her eyes and her pink hair sticking out all over the place. She hoped Gaara didn't mind, but what she had to say was way more important.

"State your business!" One of the guards at the wall yelled.

"I am Haruno Sakura, from the Hidden Leaf Village," Sakura yelled back. "I have been sent by the Hokage, Tsunade-sama, to speak with the Kazekage. It is urgent."

The guards spoke quietly amongst themselves for half a minute before apparently deciding her answer was good enough. "Very well. We will give you an escort to see Gaara-sama."

Sakura let out her breath in relief. What would she had done if they had turned her away?

Suddenly, a ninja was standing beside her. He was dressed in a white cloak, hiding all but his face. He didn't bother introducing himself but instead just said, "Follow me." He began to walk through the huge space in the wall. Sakura listened to him, following just a little behind. She felt really small when looking up at the wall towering on both sides of her.

Once they were inside the village, Sakura noticed that it was just a little cooler, but not by much. She had only been here once before, and even though her mission was important, she couldn't help but gaze around in amazement at the buildings built from sand. She saw a few people out but most were probably inside, away from the wind and heat.

The man was walking at a brisk speed, heading towards the center of the village where a bigger building sat. Before Sakura realized it, she was falling behind. She rushed back up to the man, keeping better focus on the task at hand.

Before long, they had reached the building that Gaara was in. Sakura's guide led her inside and she could not help but let out a sigh of content of finally being out of the sun's warmth and into a cooler building, even if it was still warm. They walked up a few stairs and down a long hallway before reaching a door with two guards, who were dressed similar to Sakura's own guide.

"This is Haruno Sakura from the hidden Leaf Village," her guide spoke for her. "She would like to speak with Gaara-sama immediately."

"Gaara-sama is in a meeting currently," one of the guards spoke, eying Sakura. "Can you wait?"

"No, it's urgent," Sakura said quickly, sounding disrespectful. She bit her tongue lightly. "I'm sorry, but what I have to tell Gaara-sama is pretty much a life or death situation. I'm sure whatever Gaara-sama's doing can wait."

The guards didn't look like they were too happy about Sakura's response. Still, they inched the door open and one of them stuck their heads in. His words were muffled and Sakura didn't catch them or the response that must have been given.

When the guard's reappeared, he simply gave a nod before letting Sakura past him and into the room. Sakura felt like a huge weight had been taken off her shoulder, even though she wasn't done with her mission quite yet. She left her guide behind as she stepped through the doorway.

The room was rather bare, with only a desk in the middle and a few other chairs. Everything looking like it was made out of sand, and maybe it was. Temari and Kankuo stood to one side of the desk, and they smiled at her as their greeting. Three other ninjas that Sakura did not recognize were on the other side. They looked pretty upset that their talk had been interrupted. The kazekage himself was sitting at the desk, a few papers scattered over the top. Gaara paid Sakura no mind as she stepped closer.

"Gaara?" Sakura called out, almost afraid to take him away from his concentration of those papers, but she had to. It didn't matter what they had been discussing before, her topic was much more important.

Gaara looked up, his face blank as always and yet it still held a bit of warmth in it at seeing an old friend. "Hello Sakura. What has Tsunade-sama sent you here for today?"

Sakura looked about, not sure whether she should say anything while there was other people in the room. Gaara must have seen her worried glances as he dismissed those three ninjas. Temari and Kankuro stayed.

"Now, what was it?" Gaara asked again.

"Something bad happened in the Leaf Village," Sakura started out right away. She went into as much detailed as possible explanation of how Madara had manipulated them, Naruto had gone back in time, as well as Sasuke to retrieve him and finally, how Kyuubi was taking over Naruto's body. They were running out of strength to repress Kyuubi. And of course, Madara was going to make his final move to make the ten-tailed bijuu.

Try as she might, Sakura could not help but let a few tears slip past her eyes. She quickly wiped them away, hating how her voice was beginning to get shaky. "Tsunade th-thought you should k-know as this effects everyone, not just our country. We would appreciate any help we could get. Tsunade is prepared to k-kill Naruto if she has to, I think."

Temari and Kankuro both seemed surprised but Gaara kept his emotionless face, but it still looked like he was mulling all this information over in his head.

"Very well, I think I will send a group of ninjas over to help out in anyway they can and to stand by just in case Kyuubi escapes," Gaara announced after a little while. "While I'm getting those ninjas prepared, why don't you, Sakura, have a nice meal and rest up a bit. It looks like you haven't had much sleep or food for the last couple of days."

_So it was noticeable,_ Sakura said to herself, not that she really minded.

"Temari, why don't you take care of Sakura?" Gaara commaded in the form of a question.

"Sure," Temari complied. She walked over to Sakura. "Come on, I'll get you some food."

Before they left, Sakura bowed her head to Gaara. "Thank you so much, Gaara-sama." Then she turned and followed Temari out of the room.

An hour or two later, Sakura was well fed, had changed into new clothes and felt much better. She still hadn't been able to sleep but just not running anymore was enough for her. She felt like she was ready to tackle the journey back home.

Temari led her back to the room they had been in before. There was six ninjas gathered now. Sakura didn't know any of them, but she still smiled gratefully towards them. Gaara quickly introduced them, saying names so fast that Sakura only caught half of them.

"If you are feeling better, Sakura, I suggest you leave now," Gaara said. "I've already told my ninjas that they wouldn't be getting must rest on the way there, so travel as hard as you need to reach Naruto in time."

Sakura nodded. And with that, the group headed towards the exit of the village, to the dessert beyond. Sakura could only hope that they would make it in time to help Naruto.

**End of Chapter 12**

* * *

**Author Notes: **Well, truth be told I didn't spend a lot of time editing this so I don't know how good it was... I'm thinking that at the end of the next chapter, I'll have to start moving on to the next section of this story, near the ending.

I really need your guys' opinion. I'm not sure whether or not this should have a happy or sad ending. Please tell me what you think! And also review.


	13. Chapter 13

**This Whole Thing is a Mess**

**Disclaimer: **I think it should be quite obvious I don't own him now. (Or maybe you think I do? No? Okay...)

**Author's Notes: **Uh... not much to say. Please enjoy the chapter!

* * *

**Chapter 13**

**(past)**

Kusas's**(1)** eyes traveled over to watch Naruto train. The blonde idiot was currently having only three pairs of shadow clones and himself working on the rasengan. It didn't seem like he was trying too hard either, not taking long before he gave up the chakra in his hands to wait a little while before going at it again.

Kusas let out a small growl to himself. Naruto was acting as if they had all the time in the world which they, in fact, did not have. If anything, they were pressed for their time. Naruto needed to gain back all his chakra powers and fast.

His mind wandered to the future. Was younger Naruto in older Naruto's body doing okay? Kusas wished the young boy was able to control himself, especially against Kyuubi. He hoped Tsunade had contacted Gaara already, whether or not his help was truly needed. Gaara would be able to give Naruto more protection.

He watched as Naruto looked up from his training and gazed across the camp. Kusas followed his eyes until they found the younger version of himself. Kusas narrowed his eyes slightly and glared at the younger Sasuke for distracting Naruto. The boy had only proven himself a hindrance and Kusas wondered why they had taken him a long in the first place. He had been against it from the start, even if that would have left him vulnerable to attack. As he saw it, younger Sasuke was more likely to die out here anyway.

As Naruto walked over and began to exchange words with young Sasuke, Kusas let out a huff of air, and began to get up to put an end to all of this nonsense. Naruto needed to train, not dillydally.

He was stopped though when he heard a small chuckle from behind. Kusas turned his head and saw Kakashi with his eye crinkled up in amusement and of course, with one of his books in hand. Kusas grumbled as he sat down again, next to his former sensei.

"Ne, ne, Kusas~, were you getting jealous of your younger self?" Kakashi teased lightly.

Kusas gritted his teeth. Of course that wasn't what he was doing. Uchiha's didn't get jealous. "No, I just wanted Naruto to train harder. He's slacking off."

"Hehe, or you just wanted to make sure Naruto wasn't talking to young Sasuke?" Kakashi commented. When Kusas glared at the man, Kakashi only laughed again. "I'm just saying."

"Hn, whatever," Kusas mumbled underneath his breath.

They sat in silence for awhile, Kakashi reading his perverted book and Kusas still glaring at his younger self. Finally, Kusas tore his eyes away from them and looked at Kakashi.

"I've been thinking," He started to say, breaking the quiet atmosphere.

"Eh?" Kakashi looked up from his book to give Kusas his full attention, although it was obvious his eye kept itching to go back to reading.

"If Madara was planning to kidnap Naruto in the past, then why hasn't he shown up yet?" Kusas frowned, the idea really bothering him.

"There could be plenty of reasons," Kakashi answered. "Maybe he doesn't know where we are, or is wary because of our anbu or something."

Kusas shook his head slightly, refusing to accept either of those choices. "No. I don't think those things would stop Madara, you have no idea what he's like. It seems more likely that us being here in the middle of nowhere is just another step of his plan." He spit the last part out as if disgusted with it.

"Well, then maybe he's waiting for the right time," Kakashi offered.

Kusas mulled over that idea. It was possible, but something in him still refused to accept it. "Maybe, but what would he be waiting for? Maybe coming back in time wasn't his plan at all."

"Are you saying that perhaps Madara is going to catch Naruto in the future?" Kakashi clarified.

"Perhaps..." Kusas nodded thoughtfully. "The Naruto there will be almost defenseless besides the ninja protecting him. I'm sure he won't know how to wield any of the powers he has."

"If this is so, then we're pretty much screwed as long as Naruto can't travel forward in time," Kakashi pointed out.

Kusas agreed, but something still seemed... off. He had been almost certain that Madara was afraid to capture Naruto in the future for that fact that the Naruto here might travel back to the future. Then again, here they were stuck in the past. Maybe Madara knew that would happen. Kusas shook his head when he distantly heard Kakashi continue to speak. It was all so damn confusing.

"Well, there's nothing we can really do except stick to the plan we originally had and hope that Madara will show up here later rather than sooner and that he had no intentions of catching Naruto in the future," Kakashi insisted.

"Yeah," Kusas mumbled. There was a chance Kakashi was right, just as much as he could be wrong. He wished Naruto in the future was still okay, along with the whole village and that they weren't having too much trouble.

Again, the two sank into silence as they both fretted over these disturbing thoughts.

"You look like you need something to distract you though," Kakashi observed, although Kusas was sure his sensei needed his mind averted as well. "Why don't you go fight with young Sasuke? Have a good bonding session with him."

Kusas raised one eyebrow and looked at his sensei to see if he was being serious. Once he saw that he was, he said, "Can't you go fight with him?"

Kakashi raised his book pointedly, as if that darn book was more important than anything else, and Kusas knew for a fact that the ninja could read that book whilst fighting his younger self. He was probably smirking under that damn mask as well. "Just because you don't want to deal with your younger self, doesn't mean you shouldn't. Maybe you can convince young Sasuke to give up revenge. You owe it to yourself."

Kusas grumbled as he got up. He couldn't deny that Kakashi was making sense. But he wasn't good with dealing with other people, including himself. He wasn't sure what he should say to make younger Sasuke give up on his silly dream of vengeance. He couldn't very well tell him that he was the same person and he had learned the hard way what a stupid mistake killing Itachi had been.

Kusas glanced over at Naruto, who had left younger Sasuke at some point to go back to training. He walked slowly over to the younger him. Naruto was much better at these things than him. The idiot always seemed to know the right things to say to make someone feel better. Why couldn't Naruto be doing this?

"Sasuke," the Uchiha called when he was only a few feet away from where Sasuke was practicing throwing his kunai knives.

Kusas was forced to wait a few seconds as the younger boy threw one more knife and watched it hit the center of the tree trunk. He felt like rolling his eyes before his younger self finally decided to 'grace' him with his attention. It was annoying how arrogant he had been back then. Of course, if anyone else was observing, they would probably say the older Kusas was pretty smug himself.

"Hn?" Younger Sasuke asked, probably not thinking that this ninja guy deserved full words.

"We're going to spar." It wasn't a question or an order, just a mere fact.

It would have been invisible to anyone else, but since Kusas was dealing with himself, he could see the flash of doubt in younger Sasuke's eyes. The boy was thinking it over and wondering if Kusas was worth his time.

Finally, Sasuke turned back to the tree trunk and prepared another kunai to throw. Kusas narrowed his eyes slightly as the boy began to speak. "I think this is a better way to train."

Sasuke threw the knife but it never met its destination. Instead, another knife intercepted it in the middle with a _clang!_ sending both of them flying in opposite directions. Sasuke turned, bewildered at what had just happened, although the only sign of his surprise was his one slightly raised eyebrow.

"You may be accurate with throwing knives, but that doesn't make you a good ninja," Kusas growled, informing the boy. "I was just as good at your age, if not better, but it took a lot more than that to become a great ninja."

Sasuke seemed to doubt what he had just said, even though it was actually 100% true. Kusas kind of had to be as good as his past self when he had been that age.

"We're sparring," Kusas said it this time with more force, leaving no room for the boy to argue. He made a motion with his head. "You can collect your knives first though."

At least Sasuke didn't argue with him this time, but the boy still moved at a leisurely pace to find his damned knives. It was the only sign that he was still showing defiance.

"Oi! Hurry up," Kusas ordered this time. He didn't know when he had gotten so talkative, but his younger self really was pissing him off.

The boy picked up his pace a little, which meant that he was actually taking Kusas seriously. Kusas couldn't help but let a small smirk slip onto his face. Maybe he hadn't been so hopeless after all.

* * *

**(future)**

Yamato's eyes kept coming in and out of focus as he stared down at his hands, placed on top of each other. His hands were glowing a soft blue, indicating that he was feeding his chakra through his hands and into the seal below them. That soft blue glow had been much stronger even the day before, but now it was slowly dying out.

The ninja hadn't gotten any sleep for the last couple of days, he had lost track of how many it had exactly been, but he supposed it was better if he didn't dwell on the exact numbers. No matter how much food or energy pills they shoved down Yamato's throat, it was becoming obvious that his sleep deprivation was starting to win over his body.

He just didn't have much chakra left, and it seemed Kyuubi was taking over Naruto's body faster than ever. Yamato dragged his eyesight away from his hands and stared towards the middle of the room, where Naruto lay captured. The boy's fourth tail was already forming, and his skin looked like it peeling away. He was thrashing about wildly, even with the wood holding down all his limbs and tails. The wood should've been fixed in its position, but Naruto was making it seem like it was meant to bend around and shake.

One of the wood pieces broke off a tail and another piece immediately took its place, grabbing the tail prisoner before it could wreck havoc. Problems like that had been happening more and more often, it seemed.

Yamato suddenly felt a huge wave of exhaustion sweep over him, turning his vision black for a second while he swayed, dangerously close to falling over. The glow around his hands stopped as well. He blinked, getting control over himself again and looked up to see Naruto's chakra going crazy as it quickly formed the rest of the fourth tail and peeled away almost all of Naruto's skin leaving it black and red.

"Fuck," Yamato muttered when he realized he had stopped giving chakra to the seal. He quickly flowed chakra into his hands again, the faint blue glow appearing again.

Yamato couldn't allow himself to get distracted. He glared down at his hands until they were all he saw, keeping himself oblivious to anything happening in the room, even what was happening to Naruto. He was probably making his scary, dark looking face, but he didn't care.

He couldn't let down the other ninjas here who were helping him as much as possible. If it hadn't been for them, Yamato knew this sealing device wouldn't have worked past a day. But he needed more aide than just theirs. They needed Naruto to try and fight back as well. The ninja hoped that the boy was doing just that.

* * *

**(past)**

Naruto groaned, sitting on his butt and throwing his head back in frustration and boredom. He had been at his Rasengan for the last day or two, or however many days they had been here, but he was still barely onto the second stage. The stage where power and stronger concentration is added to the spinning chakra. But it just wasn't getting to the level Naruto needed.

The boy growled before trying again, hitting the air around his palm with his other hand to get it going. Once there, Naruto focused as hard as he could on making the chakra denser and more concentrated and therefor, stronger. After about 15 seconds, Naruto decided to give up.

He wasn't sure why he couldn't get this! It seemed to be taking a lot longer than his first time of learning this, and Naruto already knew how to do it, so what was the problem? Maybe this body was just too inexperienced or something.

Naruto looked up at his four clones, working in pairs, as they tried to do the same thing. He was in high hopes as it looked like one clone might be able to get to the third stage, but then the rasengan failed and that clone was forced to start over again.

"Dammit, this isn't helping me at all," Naruto grumbled. His chakra level hadn't increased a fraction since he had gone back in time. It was horrible. Naruto needed to get his damn chakra back if he wanted to save the world from Madara, or more importantly, save Sasuke.

Naruto dispelled his clones, tired of working on this useless project. He pushed himself up from the ground and walked over to where Kakashi sat reading his book.

"Kakashi," Naruto spat. When his sensei didn't look up from his book Naruto said his name again, a little nicer. "Kakashi-sensei."

"Eh? What is it, Naruto?" Kakashi finally noticed the boy.

"I can't work on that stupid Rasengan anymore," Naruto complained, crossing his arms. "It's not getting my anywhere!"

"And...?" Kakashi prompted, as if unsure of what the blonde kid was getting at.

Naruto gritted his teeth. Kakashi knew damn well what he wanted! "So give me something else to do!"

"Like what?" Kakashi said lazily, he looked back down at his book and then back up.

"Like let me fight with Kusas or you," Naruto said. He looked longingly over at younger and older Sasuke battling each other. He glared ever so slightly. It wasn't fair how Kusas was giving all his attention to younger Sasuke!

"Meh," Kakashi yawned. "How about you just go fight with your shadow clones?"

Naruto's back slumped in defeat. Fighting Kusas would've been way more interesting but the boy was done trying to get Kakashi to see things his way. "Fine," he grumbled before stalking away.

And here he was, back in his damn original spot using his damn shadow clones again. He pouted as he made the sign for shadowclones and made three of them pop up next to him. He was sick and tired of using his clones and he almost, key word being almost, regretted ever learning this jutsu!

Naruto was more mature than his past self so he wasn't going to spend hours whining about it to his sensei. Still, he needed something new to work with! He had always been restless and therefore unable to focus on anything for a very long time, especially when said thing wasn't progressing him any further.

"Gee, Naru-chan," one of his clones teased. "What's up your ass today?"

Naruto gritted his teeth. Well, one thing clones were good for was releasing stress. Naruto charged his look alike without any hesitation, throwing all of his frustration into the attack as he tackled the guy down.

It only took a few times of punching the good looking guy in the face before the clone disappeared into a white cloud. Naruto hit the ground hard for a couple seconds before being able to stop himself.

He let out a breath of air as he climbed back to his feet. He faced his other selves with a stance, grinning and already feeling better. They both looked at each other and nodded before running straight towards Naruto. They got on opposite sides of him and bombarded him with attacks.

It took a lot of swiveling around and blocking without looking for Naruto to avoid all of their attacks. Even so, it wasn't very hard. Naruto was able to space out and let his instincts take over. He was sure if he had been fighting Kusas, it wouldn't have been so easy! (Although, Naruto still would've beat the guy, he just wouldn't have been able to space out)

Approximately 30 minutes later was when Naruto felt sudden dread. His breath caught in his throat and his heart momentarily stopped. His clones immediately dropped their attacks, and the three of them simultaneously looked out towards the middle of the clearing.

Naruto's eyes widened and the blood froze in his veins as his worst nightmare suddenly appeared.

Uchiha Madara.

The creepy man was suddenly there in all his evil glory. Madara looked over the clearing until his eyes locked with Naruto's. Naruto would have gulped if he had any saliva left in his mouth. But he could do nothing except stand there petrified.

* * *

Sasuke had to admit to himself that this Kusas was pretty strong, perhaps even stronger than Kakash was. Whatever attack Sasuke used, whether it be his fire balls or just a kick, Kusas seemed able to avoid it with ease. The older ninja still hadn't shown any of his own ninjutsu though, and it was beginning to tick Sasuke off.

Was Kusas not taking him seriously? He glared at the older man while thinking that one day, he would be more powerful than him. He was going to defeat Itachi one day, and so, this guy should learn not to take him so lightly!

Sasuke ran at the guy, who stood in a ready defense pose. Almost there, Kusas seemed to stiffen and Sasuke smirked, thinking the guy was finally afraid, which he should be. But then, Kusas dropped his stance and stared off into the distance, completely over looking Sasuke. This confused the boy, but he kept running with his attack anyways, even angrier that he was being ignored.

When Sasuke was close enough to actually strike, he brought his fist towards the man's face, but it was merely caught in Kusas's hand. Sasuke struggled to get out of the grip, but the ninja only tightened his hold.

"Our fight's over," Kusas whispered, and let go of the hand.

Sasuke's hand throbbed slightly but he refused to rub it. He glared at the guy, wondering what gave him the right to just call off the battle so suddenly. But then he noticed that Kusas was still staring at something behind him. Sasuke pivoted around, until he saw what had caught the guy's interest.

In the middle of the clearing stood a man. He wore an orange mask, but he definitely was not one of the anbu. And looking closer, Sasuke noticed that the orange mask had three eye holes, which was revolting.

Glancing around the rest of the clearing, Sasuke noticed that the anbu were out of hiding and looking like they were all ready to charge this strange man. Even Kakashi had put his book down, and Naruto had let his clones disappeared.

That's when it clicked. This guy must be an enemy that was after the nine-tails inside of Naruto. Sasuke hadn't completely believed them when they had told him that Kyubbi was sealed in Naruto, but now it was looking like it held some truth. Why else would everyone by so on guard?

Sasuke glared at the enemy, and waited for someone to make a move. He wasn't stupid enough to think he was strong enough to face this guy. They had the anbu here for a reason. Although he was surprised Naruto wasn't making any rash decisions like that.

Wait a second, had Sasuke just seen red in the man's eye? Did the guy have the sharingan? This man was a Uchiha! But he definitely wasn't Itachi... then who?

Then suddenly, the man was gone. Sasuke blinked, that hadn't been an illusion, had it? There was nothing to say the guy had been there before, not white smoke or anything.

Without warning, Sasuke felt two strong arms wrap around his body, one near his abdomen and the other up closer to his neck. His eyes widened for a split second before he felt this immense pressure everywhere on his body. He felt like he was being pulled through a small hole, one that was really only big enough for a rat. His senses abandoned him until all he was aware of was this feeling.

The pain vanished for a split second before starting up again. The next thing he knew, it was completely gone, leaving his senses to slowly start coming back to him. He was slightly slumped, his legs shaking after what he had just gone through. He was leaning into a strong chest and he noticed there was still arms wrapped around his frame, being the only thing keeping him upright. He grabbed onto the arms weakly, as if wanting more of an anchor.

His vision came back with splotches keeping him from seeing correctly. It took a few moments of blinking before he could look around the clearing normally. He noticed he was now in the middle and everyone was still in the same position he had last seen them in, but worry was quickly gathering into their expressions.

Sasuke felt cold metal press against his neck and he could not help but gasp. He finally realized whose arms these were.

_Fuck!_ He had been captured by the enemy. Sasuke began to pull at the arms around him, thinking he could not be bested, but the man's grip was stronger than anything he had ever felt, and it seemed Sasuke's limbs were still shaken from before.

He was stopped from his struggling when the cold metal dug painfully into his throat as a warning. It wasn't enough to draw blood, but it still hurt.

Sasuke's heart began pumping a mile a minute and each breath seemed to be harder to force down his throat. He felt utterly useless standing there at the complete mercy of this other man. He couldn't die yet. He... He still had to kill Itachi!

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an anbu take a step closer. The bad man swung around with Sasuke to face said anbu, and once again, the metal was dug into his throat dangerously close to breaking skin.

"Take another step," Sasuke's captor growled. "And I'll kill him."

The anbu paused. Usually, when someone made the threat to kill someone, they would wait until the last possible moment to do so, and they would most likely end up being too late to kill them. But the way this man said it, it obvious that he was being serious. He would kill Sasuke without hesitation the next time someone made a suspicious move.

Sasuke looked at the ninjas pleadingly, forgetting about his stupid pride. He didn't want to die!

"So kill him," it was Kusas speaking, in almost a bored tone.

Sasuke and the enemy turned to face Kusas. Sasuke's eyes widened slightly at what the ninja had just said. He had known that that guy was bad, he had probably wanted him dead from the beginning!

"What?" the enemy guy spoke in surprise.

"You heard me," Kusas shrugged. "Kill him. It doesn't make a difference to me."

"Sa- Kusas!" Sasuke clearly recognized Naruto's scream. "What the hell? You know what that would mean to you! Don't fucking joke around."

Sasuke could see Naruto's face contorting into anger, but Kusas merely shrugged and said, "I'm not joking around. He's been a burden from the start. He's better off dead."

Despite the situation he was in, Sasuke growled. What the hell did this guy know about him? They had only just met and already the fucking ninja was saying he was better off dead!

"I don't know what you're talking about," Naruto's loud voice echoed throughout the forest. "You've _never_ been a burden! Never!"

That seemed to shock Kusas as the ninja stopped talking. He only turned his face away from Naruto and grumbled something.

Sasuke felt like he had missed something important. Instead of yelling that last part to him, Naruto had shouted it at Kusas, which didn't make sense. His confusion only lasted momentarily as Naruto spoke once again, his voice quieter.

The blonde boy took one step forward, saying, "Madara. It's me you want, right?" He spread his arms out, as if welcoming the man. "Well, you can have me, just don't kill Sasuke... please." The last word was more like a whimper and Sasuke wasn't even sure if he had heard it right.

"Naruto!" Kusas said sharply.

Naruto continued to walk towards Sasuke and the enemy, who was apparently Madara, with his arms out in front of him to show he had no weapons. Sasuke began to struggle again. Why was Naruto sacrificing himself for his sake? He didn't need the blonde's help!

When Naruto was only a foot away, Madara harshly pushed Sasuke away, making the boy loose his balance and fall onto his knees. He looked up in time to see Naruto mouthing the word, _'Run.'_

Normally, Sasuke wouldn't have listened, but something deep down inside him told him he had to. And so, Sasuke shakily got to his feet and half-stumbled and half-ran to the edge of the clearing and into the forest. He couldn't bring himself to keeping going though, so the boy turned around, hiding in a bush to see what was going to happen.

Madara had Naruto imprisoned in his arms and a kunai knife in hand. Just as he was about to make the final blow, a hand clamped over Sasuke's mouth and he was pulled back further into the woods, the clearing disappearing from his sight.

**End of Chapter 13**

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**(1) **Okay, so I know this is older Sasuke's 3rd person POV, and he wouldn't be referring to himself as Kusas, but because it was getting annoying and confusing to keep writing older Sasuke and younger Sasuke and blah blah blah, I just decided to switch it to Kusas. (It might've been confusing to read as well the other way)

* * *

**Notes: **Eep! I'm sorry, cliff hanger. Dx But I couldn't resist, I had been planning on ending a chapter this way for a long time actually... hehe. This is actually the start of the ending! So there will only be a few more chapters, although in my opinion there is still a lot to cover.

Oh and because of this ending, I'll make sure I get the next chapter up soon. I'm actually reeeaaaally excited to write the rest! But please review, it'll definitely help me keep writing. Thanks!


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